



























<'• 






^o. 



- 



•* 









<p H 












^o C 



" 









v o c 






-' -} 











<\ ' ♦ * * < \ 



A V^ 







8 II ^V 

A^ 1 ^ 





; \ ^ % £ 









Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/lepetitnordOOgren 



LE PETIT NORD 

OR 
ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



LE PETIT NORD 



OR 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



BY 
ANNE GRENFELL AND KATIE SPALDING 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

The Riverside Press Cambridge 
1920 



COPYRIGHT, I920, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



1920 
©CU566261 



FOREWORD 

A friend from the Hub of the Universe, in a 
somewhat supercilious manner, not long ago 
informed one of our local friends that his own 
home was hundreds of miles to the southward. 
"'Deed, sir, how does you manage to live so far 
off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of one 
eye, was the answer. 

If home is the spot on earth where one spends 
the larger part of one's prime, and where one's 
family comes into being, then for over a quarter 
of a century "Le Petit Nord" of this book has 
been my home. With the authors I share for it 
and its people the love which alone keeps us 
here. Necessity has compelled me to perform, 
however imperfectly, functions usually distrib- 
uted amongst many and varied professions, and 
the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As, 
therefore, I read the amusing experiences herein 
[v] 



FOREWORD 



narrated, I feel that the "other half," who 
know us not, will love us better even if we are 
not exactly as they. That is not our fault. They 
should not live "so far off." 

The incidents told are all actual, but the 
name of every single person and place has been 
changed to afford any hypersensitive among 
the actors the protection which pseudonymity 
confers. We here who have been permitted a 
glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe 
the authors another debt beyond the love for 
the people to which they have testified by the 
more substantial offering of long and voluntary 
personal service. 

Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. 

Labrador, 1919 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

An Awful Night for a Sinner Frontispiece 

Sad Seasick Souls strewn around 20 

The Herring of High Estate 29 

"Have you a plug of baccy, Skipper?" 40 

Rhoda's Randy 42 

Topsy's Ambition is to become like a Fat 
Pig 53 

topsy was creeping from bed to bed with 
the Carving-Knife 54 

The Prophet of Doom 59 

Ananias has Broken yet Another Window 61 

Not Fat, but Fine and Hearty 68 

Delilah bawling 70 

Mrs. Uncle Life found the Leader of the 
Team in her Bed 92 

"Teacher, I have a pain " 95 

The Yoho 100 

They ate the Entire Boot 108 

He had taken the Stranger in 117 

He froze his Toe in Bed 127 

[viil 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Long Way on the Heavenward Road 131 

The Seventh Son 140 

Its Action was Prompt and Powerful 141 

It was his Last Bullet 153 

A Puffin Ghetto 180 

The Bear bit his Leg off 189 

P.S. 199 



From drawings by Dr. GrenfeU 



LE PETIT NORD 

OR 
ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



LE PETIT NORD 

OR 

ANNALS OF A 

LABRADOR HARBOUR 

OjJ the Narrows, St. John's 
June 10 

Dear Joan 

The Far North calls and I am on my way : — 
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail. 
There gloom the dark broad seas. 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks. 
Why write as if I had taken a lifelong vow of 
separation from the British Isles and all things 
civilized, when after all it is only one short year 
out of my allotted span of life that I have prom- 
ised to Mission work? Your steamer letter, with 
its Machiavellian arguments for returning im- 
mediately and directly from St. John's, was duly 
received. Of my unfitness for the work there is 
no possible doubt, no shadow of doubt whatever, 
[ 1 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



and therein you and I are at one. But you will 
do me the justice to admit that I put very forci- 
bly before those in charge of the Mission the de- 
lusion under which they were labouring; the re- 
sponsibility now lies with them, and I "go to 
prove my soul." What awaits me I know not, 
but except when the mighty billows rocked me, 
not soothingly with gentle motion, but harshly 
and immoderately, I have never wavered in my 
decision; and even at such times it was to the 
bottom of Father Neptune that I aspired to 
travel rather than to the shores of "Merrie Eng- 
land." 

The voyage so far has been uneventful, and 
we are now swaying luxuriously at anchor in a 
dense fog. This I believe is the usual welcome 
accorded to travellers to the island of New- 
foundland. There is no chart for icebergs, and 
"growlers" are formidable opponents to encoun- 
ter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to 
possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge 
[2] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

at intervals in the right to grumble which is by 
virtue of tradition ours. We have already been 
here a day and a half, and we know not how 
much longer it will be before the curtain rises 
and the first act of the drama can begin. 

These boats are far from large and none too 
comfortable. We have taken ten days to come 
from Liverpool. Think of that, you who disdain 
to cross the water in anything but an ocean 
greyhound! What hardships we poor mission- 
aries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that 
my fellow passengers arch their eyebrows and 
look politely amused when I tell them to what 
place I am bound. I ventured to ask my room- 
mate if she had ever been on Le Petit Nord. I 
wish you could have seen her face. I might as 
well have asked if she had ever been exiled to 
Siberia! I therefore judge it prudent not to 
thirst too lustily for information, lest I be sup- 
plied with more than I desire or can assimilate 
at this stage. I shall write you again when I 
[3] 



LE PETIT NORD 



board the coastal steamer, which I am credibly 
informed makes the journey to St. Antoine once 
every fortnight during the summer months. Till 
then, au revoir. 



[4] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



Run-by-Guess, June 15 
I landed on the wharf at St. John's to be met 
with the cheering information that the steamer 
had left for the north two days before. This ne- 
cessitated a delay of twelve days at least. Will 
all the babies at the Orphanage be dead before I 
arrive on the scene of action? Shall I take the 
next boat back and be in England before the 
coastal steamer comes south to claim me? Con- 
flicting emotions disturb my troubled soul, but 
"on and always on!" 

The island boasts a railroad of which the rural 
inhabitants are inordinately proud. Just prior to 
my arrival a daily service had been inaugurated. 
Formerly the passenger trains ran only three 
times a week. There are no Sunday trains. As 
I had so much time to spare, I decided that I 
could not do better than spend some of it in go- 
ing across the island and thus see the southern 
part of the country, catching my boat at Come- 
[5] 



LE PETIT NORD 



by-Chance Junction on the return journey. 
Truth compels me to add that I find myself a 
sadder and wiser woman. I left St. John's one 
evening at six o'clock, being due to arrive at our 
destination at eight o'clock the following night. 
There is no unpleasant "hustle" on this railway, 
and you may wait leisurely and humbly for a 
solid hour while your very simple meal is pre- 
pared. If you do not happen to be hungry, this 
is only a delightful interlude in the incessant 
rush of modern life, but if perchance Nature has 
endowed you with a moderate appetite, that one 
hour seems incurably long. 

All went well the first night, or at least my 
fellow passengers showed no signs of there being 
anything unusual, so like Brer Rabbit, I lay low 
and said nothing. At noon the following day a 
slightly bigger and more prolonged jolt caused 
the curious among us to look from the window. 
The engine, tender, and luggage van were de- 
railed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds 
[61 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps 
which occur from time to time do not ruffle the 
serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to 
a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight 
and explore the country. But alas ! I had no mos- 
quito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside 
without this protection was to risk disfigure- 
ment for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse 
circumstances and returned to try and read, the 
previous bumping having made this out of the 
question. But the interior was by this time a 
veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be 
obtained, as the Company had not thought it 
necessary to provide their windows with screens. 
For twenty-five hours we remained in durance 
vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our 
rescue and conveyed us to Run-by-Guess, our 
destination. 



[7] 



LE PETIT NORD 



Northward Bound. On board 
June 25 

If you could have been present during the re- 
turn journey from Run-by-Guess your worst 
prophecies would have seemed to you justified. 
The railroad is of the genus known as narrow- 
gauge; the roadbed was not constructed on the 
principles laid down by the Romans. In a coun- 
try where the bones of Mother Earth protrude 
so insistently, it is beating the devil round the 
stump to mend the bed with fir branches tucked 
even ever so solicitously under the ties. That, 
nevertheless, was an attempt at "safety first" 
which I saw. 

Towards morning a furious rain and wind 
storm broke over us. Before many minutes I 
noticed that my berth was becoming both cold 
and damp. Looking up I made out in the dim 
dawn a small but persistent stream pouring 
down upon me. I had had the upper berth 
f 8 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



pushed up so as to get the air! Again the train 
came to an unscheduled stop. By this time as- 
sorted heads were emerging from behind the 
curtains, and from each came forcible protests 
against the weather. There was nothing to be 
done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my 
arms around my knees, occupying thus the 
smallest possible space for one of my propor- 
tions, and wait developments. Ten minutes 
later, after much shouting outside my window, 
a ladder was planted against the car, and two 
trainmen in yellow oilskins climbed to the roof. 
I noted with satisfaction that they carried ham- 
mers, tacks, and strips of tin. A series of re- 
sounding blows and the almost immediate cessa- 
tion of the descending floods told how effective 
their methods had proved. Directly afterwards 
the startled squeak of the engine whistle, as if 
some one had trodden on its toe, warned us that 
we were off once more. 
We landed (you will note that the nautical 
[0] 



LE PETIT NORD 



phraseology of the country has already gripped 
me) in the same storm at Come-by- Chance 
Junction. But the next morning broke bright 
and shining, as if rain and wind were inhab- 
itants of another planet. It is quite obvious 
that this land is a lineal descendant of Albion's 
Isle. Now I am aboard the coastal steamer and 
we are nosing our way gingerly through the 
packed floe ice, as we steam slowly north for 
Cape St. John. Yes, I know it is Midsummer's 
Day, but as the captain tersely put it, "the 
slob is a bit late." 

The storm of two days ago blowing in from 
the broad Atlantic drove the great field of left- 
over pans before it, and packed them tight 
against the cliffs. If we had not had that sudden 
change in the weather's mind yesterday, we 
should not be even as far along as we now find 
ourselves. 

You can form no idea of one's sensations as 
the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. 
[ 10] 






ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the 
sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. 
Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, 
and sometimes they are so tightly massed to- 
gether that they look like a hummocky white 
field. How any one can get a steamer along 
through it is a never-ending source of amaze- 
ment, and my admiration for the captain is un- 
stinted. I stand on the bridge by the hour, and 
watch him and listen to the reports of the man 
on the cross-trees as to the prospects of "leads" 
of open water ahead. Every few minutes we 
back astern, and then butt the ice. If one stays 
below decks the noise of the grinding on the 
ship's side is so persistent and so menacing that 
I prefer the deck in spite of its barrels and crates 
and boxes and smells. Here at least one would 
not feel like a rat in a hole if a long, gleaming, 
icy, giant finger should rip the ship's side open 
down the length of her. As we grate and scrape 
painfully along I look back and see that the 
[ 11] 



LE PETIT NORD 



ice-pan channel we leave behind is lined with 
scarlet. It is the paint off our hull. The 
spectacle is all too suggestive for one who has 
always regarded the most attractive aspect of 
the sea to be viewed from the landwash. 

Of course the scenery is beautiful — almost 
too trite to write — but the beauty is lonesome 
and terrifying, and my city-bred soul longs for 
some good, homely, human "blot on the land- 
scape." There are no trees on the cliffs now. I 
understand, however, that Nature is not respon- 
sible for this oversight. The people are sorely 
in need of firewood, and not being far-seeing 
enough to realize what a menace it is to the 
country to denude it so unscientifically, they 
have razed every treelet. Nature has done her 
best to rectify their mistake, and the rocky hills 
are covered with jolly bright mosses and lichens. 

Naturally, there are compensations for even 
this kind of voyage, for no swell can make itself 
felt through the heavy ice pack. We steam along 
[ 12] 






ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

for miles on a keel so even that only the throb of 
our engines, and the inevitable "ship-py " odour, 
remind one that the North Atlantic rolls be- 
neath the staunch little steamer. 

The "staunch little steamer's" whistle has 
just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. 
It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant 
personality. We have turned into a "tickle," 
and around the bend ahead of us are a handful 
of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the 
sides of the rocky shore. 

I cannot get used to the quaint language of 
the people, and from the helpless way in which 
they stare at me, my tongue must be equally 
unintelligible. A delightful camaraderie exists; 
every one knows every one else, or they all act 
as if they did. As we come to anchor in the little 
ports, the men from the shore lash their punts 
fast to the bottom of the ship's ladder, and clam- 
ber with gazelle-like agility over our side. If you 
happen to be leaning curiously over the rail near 
[ 13 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



by, they jerk their heads and remark, "Good 
morning," or, "Good evening," according as it 
is before or after midday. This is an afternoon- 
less country. The day is divided into morning, 
evening, and night. Their caps seem to have 
been born on their heads and to continue to 
grow there like their hair, or like the clothing of 
the children of Israel, which fitted them just as 
well when they came out of the wilderness as 
when they went in. But no incivility is meant. 
You may dissect the meaning and grammar of 
that paragraph alone. You have had long prac- 
tice in such puzzles. 



14 ] 



i 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



Seventy-jive miles later ' 
We are out of the ice field and steaming past 
Cape St. John. This was the dividing line be- 
tween the English and French in the settlement 
of their troubles in 1635. North of it is called the 
French or Treaty Shore, or as the French them- 
selves so much more quaintly named it, "Le 
Petit Nord." It is at the north end of Le Petit 
Nord that St. Antoine is located. 

The very character of the country and vege- 
tation has changed. It is as if the great, forbid- 
ding fortress of St. John's Cape cut off the 
milder influences of southern Newfoundland, 
and left the northern peninsula a prey to ice and 
winds and fog. The people, too, have felt the in- 
fluence of this discrimination of Nature. There 
is a line of demarcation between those who have 
been able to enjoy the benefits of the southern 
island, and those who have had to cope with the 
recurrent problems of the northland. I cannot 
[ 15] 



LE PETIT NORD 



help thinking of the change this shore must 
have been from their beloved and smiling Brit- 
tany to those first eager Frenchmen. The names 
on the map reveal their pathetic attempts to 
stifle their nostalgie by christening the coves and 
harbours with the familiar titles of their home- 
land. 

I fear in my former letter I made some rather 
disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, 
but I want to take them all back. Life is a series 
of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on 
which I crossed seems a veritable floating pal- 
ace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing 
only I am certain — I shall never, never have 
the courage to face the return journey. 

The time for the steamer to make the journey 
from Come-by- Chance to St. Antoine is from 
four to five days, but when there is much ice 
these days have been known to stretch to a 
month. The distance in mileage is under three 
hundred, but because of the many harbours into 
[ 16] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

which the boat has to put to land supplies, it is 
really a much greater distance. There are thirty- 
three ports of call between St. John's and St. 
Antoine, most of which are tiny fishing settle- 
ments consisting of a few wooden houses at the 
water's edge. This coast possesses scores of the 
most wonderful natural harbours, which are not 
only extremely picturesque, but which alone 
make the dangerous shore possible for naviga- 
tion. As the steamer puts in at Bear Cove, Pov- 
erty Cove, Deadman's Cove, and Seldom-Come- 
By (this last from the fact that, although boats 
pass, they seldom anchor there), out shoot the 
little rowboats to fetch their freight. It is cer- 
tainly a wonderfully fascinating coast, beauti- 
fully green and wooded in the south, and be- 
coming bleaker and barer the farther north one 
travels. But the bare ruggedness and naked 
strength of the north have perhaps the deeper 
appeal. To those who have to sail its waters and 
wrest a living from the harvest of the sea, this 
[ 17] 



LE PETIT NORD 



must be a cruel shore, with its dangers from 
rocks and icebergs and fog, and insufficient 
lighting and charting. 

Apart from the glory of the scenery the jour- 
ney leaves much to be desired, and the weather, 
being exceedingly stormy since we left the ice 
field behind, has added greatly to our trials. The 
accommodations on the boat are strictly lim- 
ited, and it is crowded with fishermen going 
north to the Labrador, and with patients for the 
Mission Hospital. As they come on in shoals 
at each harbour the refrain persistently runs 
through my head, "Will there be beds for all 
who come?" But the answer, alas, does not fit 
the poem. Far from there being enough and to 
spare, I know of two at least of my fellow pas- 
sengers who took their rest in the hand basins 
when not otherwise wanted. Tables as beds 
were a luxury which only the fortunate could se- 
cure. Almost the entire space on deck is filled 
with cargo of every description, from building 
[ 18] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

lumber to live-stock. While the passengers num- 
ber nearly three hundred, there are seating ac- 
commodations on four tiny wooden benches 
without backs, for a dozen, if packed like sar- 
dines. Barrels of flour, kerosene, or molasses 
provide the rest. Although somewhat hard for a 
succession of days, these latter are saved from 
the deadly ill of monotony by the fact that as 
they are discharged and fresh taken on, such 
vantage-points have to be secured anew from 
day to day; and one learns to regard with equa- 
nimity if not with thankfulness what the gods 
please to send. 

There are many sad, seasick souls strewn 
around. If cleanliness be next to godliness, then 
there is little hope of this steamer making the 
Kingdom of Heaven. One habit of the men is 
disgusting; they expectorate freely over every- 
thing but the ocean. The cold outside is so 
intense as to be scarcely endurable, while the 
closeness of the atmosphere within is less so. 
[ 19] 



LE PETIT NORD 



These are a few of the minor discomforts of 
travel to a mission station ; the rest can be better 
imagined than described. If, to the Moslem, to 




be slain in battle signifies an immediate entrance 
into the pleasures of Paradise, what should 
be the reward of those who suffer the vaga- 
ries of this northern ocean, and endure to the 
end? 

My trunk is lost. In the excitement of carpen- 
tering incidental to the cloudburst, the crew 
of the train omitted to drop it off at Come-by- 
Chance. I am informed that it has returned 
across the country to St. John's. If I had not 
[20] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

already been travelling for a fortnight, or if 
Heaven had endowed me with fewer inches so 
that my clothing were not so exclusively my 
own, the problem of the interim till the next 
boat would be simpler. 

I have had my first, and I may add my last, 
experience of "brewis," an indeterminate con- 
coction much in favour as an article of diet on 
this coast. The dish consists of hard bread (ship's 
biscuit) and codfish boiled together in a copious 
basis of what I took to be sea- water. "On the 
surface of the waters" float partially disinte- 
grated chunks of fat salt pork. I am not finick- 
ing. I could face any one of these articles of diet 
alone; but in combination, boiled, and served up 
lukewarm in a soup plate for breakfast, in the 
hot cabin of a violently rolling little steamer, 
they take more than my slender stock of philoso- 
phy to cope with. Yet they save the delicacy for 
the Holy Sabbath. The only justification of this 
policy that I can see is that, being a day of rest, 
[ 21 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



their stomachs can turn undivided and dogged 
attention to the process of digestion. 

Did I say "day of rest" ? The phrase is ut- 
terly inadequate. These people are the strictest 
of Sabbatarians. The Puritan fathers, whom we 
now look back upon with a shivery thankfulness 
that our lot did not fall among them, would, and 
perhaps do, regard them as kindred spirits. But 
they are earnest Christians, with a truly un- 
complaining selflessness of life. 

By some twist of my brain that reminds me 
of a story told me the other day which brings 
an old legend very prettily to this country. It 
is said that when Joseph of Arimathea was 
hounded from place to place by the Jews, he 
fled to England taking the Grail with him. The 
spot where he settled he called Avalon. When 
Lord Baltimore, a devout Catholic, was given 
a huge tract of land in the south of this little 
island, he christened it Avalon in commemo- 
ration of Joseph of Arimathea's also distant 
[ 22 ] 






ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

journey. To the disgrace of the Protestants, 
the Catholic exiles arrived in the "land of 
promise" only to discover that the spirit of 
persecution was rampant in this then far-off 
colony. 

Evidently the people of the country think 
that every man bound for the Mission is a doc- 
tor, and every woman a nurse. If my Puritan 
conscience had not blocked the way, I could 
have made a considerable sum prescribing for 
the ailments of my fellow passengers. One little 
thin woman on board has just confided to me, 
"Why, miss, I found myself in my stomach 
three times last week" — and looked up for ad- 
vice. As for me, I was "taken all aback," and 
hastened to assure her that nothing approaching 
so astonishing an event had ever come within 
the range of my experience. I hated to suggest it 
to her, but I have a lurking suspicion that the 
catastrophe had some not too distant connec- 
tion with the "brewis." By the way, all right- 
[ 23 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



minded Newfoundlanders and Labradormen call 
it "bruse." 

Also by the way, it is incorrect to speak of 
Newfoundland. It is 'Newfoundland. Neither do 
you go up north if you know what you are about. 
You go "down North"; and your friend is not 
bound for Labrador. She is going to "the Labra- 
dor," or, to be more of a purist still, "the Lar- 
badore." Having put you right on these rudi- 
ments — oh! I forgot another: "Fish" is always 
codfish. Other finny sea-dwellers may have to be 
designated by their special names, but the un- 
pretentious cod is "t' fish"; and the salutation 
of friends is not, "How is your wife?" or, "How 
is your health?" But, "How's t' fish, B'y?" I 
like it. It is friendly and different — a kind of 
password to the country. 

I am glad that I am not coming here as a mere 

traveller. The land looks so reserved that, like 

people of the same type, you are sure it is well 

worth knowing. So when, perhaps, I have been 

[ 24 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

able to discover a little of its "subliminal self," 
the tables will be turned, and you will be eager 
to make its acquaintance. Then it will be my 
chance to offer you sage and unaccepted advice 
as to your inability to cope with the climate and 
its entourage. I too shall be able to prophesy un- 
heeded a shattered constitution and undermined 
nerves. To be sure, old Jacques Cartier had such 
a poor opinion of the coast that he remarked it 
ought to have been the land God gave to Cain. 
But J. C. has gone to his long rest. After the 
length of this letter I judge that you envy him 
that repose, so I release you with my love. 



[25] 



LE PETIT NORD 



St. Antoine Orphanage at last 

Address for one year 

July 6 

I have at last arrived at the back of beyond. We 
should have steamed right past the entrance of 
our harbour if the navigation had been in my 
hands. You make straight for a great headland 
jutting out into the Atlantic, when the ship 
suddenly takes a sharp turn round an abrupt 
corner, and before you know it, you are ad- 
vancing into the most perfect of landlocked 
harbours. A great cliff rises on the left, — 
Quirpon Point they call it, — and clinging to 
its base like an overgrown limpet is a tiny cot- 
tage, with its inevitable fish stage. Farther 
along are more houses; then a white church 
with a pointed spire, and a bright-green building 
near by, while across the path is a very pretty 
square green school. Next are the Mission 
buildings in a group. Beyond them come more 
small houses — "Little Labrador" I learned 
f 26 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

later that this group is called, because the 
people living there have almost all come over 
from the other side of the Straits of Belle Isle. 
The ship's ladder was dropped as we came to 
anchor opposite the small Mission wharf. The 
water is too shallow to allow a large steamer to 
go into it, but the hospital boat, the Northern 
Light, with her draft of only eight feet, can eas- 
ily make a landing there. We scrambled over the 
side and secured a seat in the mail boat. Before 
we knew it four hearty sailors were sweeping us 
along towards the little dock. Here, absolutely 
wretched and forlorn, painfully conscious of 
crumpled and disordered garments, I turned 
to face the formidable row of Mission staff 
drawn up in solemn array to greet us. As the doc- 
tor-in-charge stepped forward and with a bland 
smile hoped I had had a "comfortable journey," 
and bade me welcome to St. Antoine, with a pro- 
digious effort I contorted my features into some- 
thing resembling a grin, and limply shook his 
[ 27 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



outstretched hand. To-morrow I mean to make 
enquiries about retiring pensions for Mission 
workers ! 

No one had much sympathy with me over the 
loss of my trunk. They laughed and said I would 
be fortunate if it appeared by the end of the 
summer. You had better send me a box by 
freight with some clothing in it; I otherwise 
shall have to live in bed, or seek admission to 
hospital as a "chronic." 

How perfectly dear of you to have a letter 
awaiting me at the Orphanage. Regardless of 
manners I fell to and devoured it, while all the 
"little oysters stood and waited in a row." Like 
the walrus, with a few becoming words I intro- 
duced myself as their future guardian, but never 
a word said they. As, led by a diminutive maid, 
I passed from their gaze I heard an awe-struck 
whisper, "It's gone upstairs!" 

In answer to my questions the little maid in- 
formed me that the last mistress had left by the 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



boat I had just missed, and that since then the 
children had been in her charge, with such help 
and supervision as the various members of the 
Mission staff could give. I therefore felt it was 
"up to me" to make a start, and I delicately en- 




quired when the next meal was due. An exhaus- 
tive exploration of the larder revealed two her- 
rings, one undoubtedly of very high estate. As 
the children looked fairly plump, I concluded 
that they had only been on such meagre diet 
since the departure of the last "mistress." The 
barrenness of the larder suggested a fruitful 
topic of conversation with which to win the con- 
[29] 



LE PETIT NORD 



fidence of these staring, open-mouthed chil- 
dren, and I therefore tenderly asked what they 
would most like to eat, supposing It were there. 
One and all affirmed that "swile" meat was a 
delicacy such as their souls loved — and re- 
peated questions could elucidate no further. 
Subsequently, on making enquiries of one of the 
Mission staff, I thought I detected a look which 
led me to suppose that I had not yet acquired 
the correct pronunciation of the word. We dined 
off the herring of lowly origin, and consigned the 
other to the garbage pail. Nerve as well as skill, 
I can assure you, is required to divide one her- 
ring into thirty-six equal parts. There is no occa- 
sion for alarm. I have not the slightest intention 
of starving these infants. To-morrow I go on a 
foraging expedition to the Mission commissariat 
department (there must be one somewhere), 
and then the fat years shall succeed the lean 
ones. 

To-night I am too tired to do more, and there 
f 30 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



is a quite absurd longing to see some one's face 
again. The coming year looks very long and very 
dreary, and although I know I shall grow to love 
these children, yet, oh, I wish they did not stare 
so when one has to blink so hard to keep the 
tears from falling. 



[31 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



July 7 
Morning! And the children may stare all they 
like. I no longer need to repress youthful emo- 
tions. All the same it is a trifle disconcerting. I 
had chosen, as I thought, a very impressive por- 
tion of Scripture for Prayers, and the children 
were as quiet as mice. But they never let their 
eyes wander from me for a single moment, until 
I began to feel I ought at least to have a smut on 
the tip of my nose. 

The alluring advertisement of Newfoundland, 
as "the coolest country on the Atlantic seaboard 
in the summer," is all too painfully true. It is 
very, very cold at present, and the sun, if sun 
there be, is safely ensconced behind an impene- 
trable bank of fog. If this is summer weather, 
what will the winter be! 

I started to write thissto you in the morning, 
but the day has been one long series of interrup- 
tions. The work is all new to me and not exactly 
[ 32 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

what I expected, but the spice of variety is not 
lacking. I find it very hard to understand these 
children and it is evident from their faces that 
they fail to comprehend my meaning. Yet I have 
a lurking suspicion that when it is an order to 
be obeyed, their desire to understand is not over- 
whelming. The children are supposed to do the 
work of the Home under my superintendency, 
the girls undertaking the housework and the 
boys the outside "chores." Apparently from all 
I hear my predecessor was a strict disciplinarian, 
an economical manager, an expert needlewoman, 
and everything I should be and am not. The 
sewing simply appalls me! I confess that stitch- 
ing for three dozen children of all sizes had not 
entered into my calculations as one of the duties 
of a "missionary"! Yet of course I realize they 
must be clad as well as taught. What a pity that 
the climate will not allow of a simple loin cloth 
and a string of beads. And how infinitely more 
becoming. Then, too, how much easier would be 
f 33 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



the food problem were we dusky Papuans dwell- 
ing in the far-off isles of the sea. This country- 
produces nothing but fish, and we have to plan 
our food supplies for a year in advance. How 
much corn-meal mush will David eat in twelve 
months? And if David eats so much in twelve 
months, how much will Noah, two months 
younger, eat in the same period of time? If one 
herring satisfies thirty-six, how many dozen will 
a herring and a half feed? Picture me with a cold 
bandage round my head seeking to emulate 
Hoover. 

A little mite has just come to the door to in- 
form me that her dress has "gone abroad." See- 
ing my mystified look, she enlightened me by 
holding up a tattered garment which had all too 
evidently "gone abroad" almost beyond recall. 
Throwing the food problem to the winds I set 
myself with a businesslike air to sew together 
the ragged threads. A second knock brought me 
the cheerful tidings that the kitchen fire had 
f 34 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

languished from lack of sustenance. Now I had 
previously in my most impressive tones com- 
manded one of the elder boys to attend to this 
matter, and he had promptly departed, as I 
thought, to "cleave the splits." Searching for 
him I found this industrious youth lying on his 
back complacently contemplating the heavens. 
To my remonstrance he somewhat indignantly 
remarked that he was only "taking a spell." A 
really magnificent and grandiloquent appeal to 
the boy's sense of honour and a homily on the 
dignity of labour were abruptly terminated by 
shrill cries resounding from the house. Rushing 
in, I was informed that Noah was "bawling" 
(which fact was perfectly evident), having 
jammed his fingers in trying to "hist" the win- 
dow. In this country children never cry; they 
always "bawl." 

I foresee that the life of a Superintendent of 
an Orphan Asylum is not a simple one, and that 
I shall be in no danger of being "carried to the 
[35] 



LE PETIT NORD 



skies" on a "flowery bed of ease." Certain I am 
that there will only be opportunity to write to 
you at "scattered times"; so for the present, 
fare thee well. 



[36] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



Sunday, August 4 
You see before you, or you would if my very ob- 
vious instead of merely my astral body were in 
your presence, a changed and sobered being. I 
have made the acquaintance of the Labrador 
fly, and he has made mine. The affection is all on 
his side. Mosquito, black fly, sand fly — they 
are all alike cannibals. You have probably heard 
the old story about the difference between the 
Labrador and the New Jersey mosquito? The 
Labrador species can be readily distinguished by 
the black patch between his eyes about the size 
of a man's hand. Of the lot I prefer the mos- 
quito. He at least is open about his evil inten- 
tions. The black fly darts at you quietly, settles 
down on an un-get-at-able spot, and sucks your 
blood. If I did not find my appetite so unim- 
paired, I should fancy this morning I was suffer- 
ing from an acute attack of mumps. 

Mumps is at the moment in our midst, and as 
[ 37 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



is generally the case has fallen on the poorest of 
the community. In this instance it is a widow by 
the name of Kinsey, who has six children, and 
lives in a miserable hovel. More of her anon. Her 
twelve-year-old boy comes to the Home daily to 
get milk for the wretched baby, whom we had 
heard was down with the disease. When he came 
this morning I told him to stay outdoors while 
we fetched the milk, because I knew how 
sketchy are the precautions of his ilk against 
carrying infection. "No fear, miss," he assured 
me. "The baby was terrible bad last night, but 
he 's all clear this morning." 

But to return to the Kinsey parent. She had 
eight children. The Newfoundlanders are a pro- 
lific race, and life is consequently doubly hard 
on the women. Her husband died last fall, leav- 
ing her without a sou, and no roof over her head. 
The Mission gave her a sort of shack, and took 
two of her kiddies into the Home. The place was 
too crowded at the time to take any more. The 
[38] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

doctor then wrote to the orphanages at the capi- 
tal presenting the problem, and asking that they 
take a consignment of children. The Church of 
England Orphanage, of which denomination the 
mother is a member, was full; and the other one, 
which has just had a gift of beautiful buildings 
and grounds, "regretted they could not take any 
of the children, as their orphanage was exclu- 
sively for their denomination." The mother did 
not respond to the doctor's ironic suggestion 
that she should "turncoat" under the press of 
circumstances. 

They tell a story here about Kinsey, the late 
and unlamented. Last spring a steamer heading 
north on Government business sighted a fishing 
punt being rowed rapidly towards it, the occu- 
pant waving a flag. The captain ordered, "Stop 
her," thinking that some acute emergency had 
arisen on the land during the long winter. A 
burly old chap cased in dirt clambered deliber- 
ately over the rail. 

[39] 



LE PETIT NORD 



"Well, what's up?" asked the captain testily. 
"Can't you see you're keeping the steamer?" 
"Have you got a plug or so of baccy you could 




[40] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

give me, skipper? I has n't had any for nigh a 
month, and it do be wonderful hard." 

The captain's reply was unrepeatable, but for 
such short acquaintance it was an accurate re- 
sume of the character of the applicant. De mor- 
tuis nil nisi bonum is all very well, but it de- 
pends on the mortuis; and that man's wife and 
children had been short of food he had "smoked 
away." 

I have the greatest admiration for the women 
of this coast. They work like dogs from morning 
till nightfall, summer and winter, with "ne'er a 
spell," as one of them told me quite cheerfully. 
The men are out on the sea in boats, which at 
least is a life of variety, and in winter they can 
go into the woods for firewood. The women hang 
forever over the stove or the washtub, go into 
the stages to split the fish, or into the gardens to 
grow "'taties." Yet oddly enough, there is less 
illiteracy among the women than among the 
men. 

[41 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



Such a nice girl is here from Adlavik as maid 
in the hospital. Rhoda Macpherson is her name. 
She told me the other day that one winter the 
doctor of the station near her asked the men to 
clear a trail down a very steep hill leading to the 









^J 1 



village, as the dense trees made the descent dan- 
gerous for the dogs. Weeks went by and the men 
did nothing. Finally three girls, with Rhoda as 
leader, took their axes every Sunday afternoon 
and went out and worked clearing that road. In 
a month it was done. The doctor now calls it 
"Rhoda's Randy." 

[ 42] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Yesterday afternoon I was out with my cam- 
era. (Saturday you will note. I have learned al- 
ready that to be seen on Sundays in this Sabba- 
tarian spot, even walking about with that incon- 
spicuous black box, is anathema.) A crowd of 
children in a disjointed procession had collected 
in front of the hospital, and the patients on the 
balconies were delightedly craning their necks. 
A biting blast was blowing, but the children, 
clad in white garments, looked oblivious to wind 
and weather. It was a Sunday-School picnic. A 
dear old fisherman was with them, evidently the 
leader. 

"What's it all about?" I asked. 

"We've come to serenade the sick, miss. 'T is 
little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children, 
sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was 
"Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I 
got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old 
fellow expressed it. 

In the many weeks since I saw you — and it 
[43] 



LE PETIT NORD 



seems a lifetime — I have forgotten to mention 
one important item of news. Every properly ap- 
pointed settlement along this coast has its ceme- 
tery. This place boasts two. With your predilec- 
tion for epitaphs you would be content. The pre- 
vailing mode appears to be clasped hands under 
a bristling crown; but all the same that sort of 
thing makes a more "cheerful" graveyard than 
those gloomily beautiful monuments with their 
hopeless "%at/oeTe " that you remember in the mu- 
seum at Athens. There is one here which reads; 

Memory of John Hill 

who Died 
December 30th. 1889 

Weep not, dear Parents, 
For your loss 't is 
My etarnal gain May 
Christ you all take up 
the Cross that we 
Should meat again. 

The spelling may not always be according to 

Webster, but the sentiments portray the love 

[ 44 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

and hope of a God-fearing people unspoiled by 
the roughening touch of civilization. 

I must to bed. Stupidly enough, this climate 
gives me insomnia. Probably it is the mixture of 
the cold and the long twilight (I can read at 
9.30), and the ridiculous habit of growing light 
again at about three in the morning. I am be- 
ginning to have a fellow feeling with the chick- 
ens of Norway, poor dears ! 



[ 45 



LE PETIT NORD 



August 9 
I want to violently controvert your disparaging 
remarks about this "insignificant little island." 
Do you realize that this same "insignificant 
little island" is four times bigger than Scot- 
land, and that it has under its dominion a large 
section of Labrador? If, as the local people say, 
" God made the world in five days, made Labra- 
dor on the sixth, and spent the seventh throwing 
stones at it," then a goodly portion of those 
stones landed by mischance in St. Antoine. In- 
deed, Le Petit Nord and Labrador are so much 
alike in climate, people, and conditions that 
this part of the island is often designated locally 
as Labrador (never has it been my lot to see 
a more desolate, bleak, and barren spot). The 
traveller who described Newfoundland as a 
country composed chiefly of ponds with a little 
land to divide them from the sea, at least cannot 
be impeached for unveracity. In this northern 
[46] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

part even that little is rendered almost impene- 
trable in the summer-time by the thick under- 
brush, known as "tuckamore," and the formida- 
ble swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. All the 
inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is 
only travelled over in the winter with komatik 
and dogs. 

No, I am not living in the midst of Indians or 
Eskimos. Please be good enough to scatter this 
information broadcast, for each letter from Eng- 
land reveals the fear that I am in imminent dan- 
ger of being scalped alive or buried in an igloo. 
There are a few scattered Eskimos on Le Petit 
Nord, but for the most part the inhabitants are 
whites and half-breeds. The Indians live almost 
entirely in the interior of Labrador and the Es- 
kimos around the Moravian stations. I am liv- 
ing amongst the descendants of the fishermen of 
Dorset and Devon who came out about two hun- 
dred years ago and settled on this coast for the 
cod-fishery. Those who live in the south are 
[47] 



LE PETIT NORD 



comparatively well off, but many in the north 
are in great poverty and often on the verge of 
starvation. 

When I look about me and see this poverty, 
the ignorance born of lack of opportunity, the 
suffering, the dirt, and degradation which are in 
so large a measure no fault of these poor folk, I 
am overwhelmed at the wealth of opportunities. 
Here at least every talent one has to offer counts 
for double what it would at home. 

Thousands of fishermen come from the south 
each spring to take part in the summer's fishery. 
The Labrador "liveyeres," who remain on the 
coast all the year round, often have only little 
one-roomed huts made of wood and covered 
with sods. In the winter the northern people 
move up the bays and go "furring." Both the 
Indians and Eskimos are diminishing in num- 
bers, and the former at the present time do not 
amount to more than three or four thousand 
persons — and of these the Montagnais tribe 
r 48 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

make up more than half. The Moravian mission- 
aries have toiled untiringly amongst the Eski- 
mos, and assuredly not for any earthly reward. 
They go out as young men and practically spend 
their whole life on the coast, their wives being 
selected and sent out to them from home! 

The work of this Mission is among the white 
settlers. In the Home we have only one pure 
Eskimo, a few half-breeds (Indians and Es- 
kimo), and the remainder are of English de- 
scent. Almost all are from Labrador. 

I often fancy that I must surely have slept 
the sleep of Rip Van Winkle. When he woke he 
found that the world had marched ahead a hun- 
dred years. With me the process is reversed. I 
am almost inclined to yield a grudging agree- 
ment to the transmigrationalists, and believe 
that I am re-living one of my former existences. 
For the part of the country in which I have 
awakened is a generation or so behind the world 
in which we live. There is no education worthy 
f 49 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



of the name, in many places no schools at all, 
and in others half -educated teachers eking out a 
miserable existence on a mere pittance. This is 
chiefly due to the antediluvian custom of divid- 
ing the Government educational grant on a de- 
nominational basis. A large proportion of the 
people can neither read nor write. There are no 
roads, no means of communication, no doctors 
or hospitals (save the Mission ones), no oppor- 
tunities for improvement, no industrial work, 
practically no domestic animals, and on Labra- 
dor, taxation without representation! There is 
only one hospital provided by the Government 
for the whole of this island, and that one is at St. 
John's, which is inaccessible to these northern 
people for the greater part of the year. No pro- 
vision whatever is made by the Government for 
hospitals for the Labrador. Again the only ones 
are those maintained by this Mission. Lack of 
education, lack of opportunity, and abundance 
of overwhelming poverty make up the lot of the 
[50] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

majority of people in this north part of the 
country. Little wonder from their point of view, 
that one youth, returning to this land after see- 
ing others, declared that the man he desired 
above all others to shoot was John Cabot, the 
discoverer of Newfoundland. 



[51] 



LE PETIT NORD 



August 15 
You complain that I have told you almost noth- 
ing about these children, and you want to know 
what they are like. And I wish you to know, so 
that you will stop sending dolls to Mary who is 
sixteen, and cakes of scented soap to David who 
hates above all else to be washed. I find these 
children very difficult in some ways; many of 
them are mentally deficient, but it appears that 
no provision is made by the Government for deal- 
ing with such cases, and so there is nothing to do 
but take them in or let them starve. Some are 
very wild and none have the slightest idea of 
obedience when they first arrive. 

One girl I have christened "Topsy," and I 
only wish you could see her when she is in one of 
her tantrums, which she has at frequent inter- 
vals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet- 
black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks 
the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is 
[52] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



twelve, but shows neither ability nor desire to 
learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless 
closely watched she will be found filling her 
pockets with the contents of the garbage pail — 




and this in spite of the fact that we are no longer 
dining off one herring. She says that her ambi- 
tion in life is to become like a fat pig ! Last night, 
\ 53 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



when the children were safely tucked in bed and 
I had sat down to write to you, piercing shrieks 
were heard resounding through the stillness 
of the house. A tour of investigation revealed 
Topsy creeping from bed to bed in the darkness, 
pretending to cut the throats of the girls with a 




large carving-knife which she had stolen for this 
purpose. To-day Topsy is going around with her 
hands tied behind her back as a punishment, 
and in the hope that without the use of her 
hands we may have one day of peace at least. 
Poor Topsy, kindness and severity alike seem 
unavailing. She steals and lies with the greatest 
readiness, and one wonders what life holds in 
store for her. 

[54 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

We have just admitted three children, so we 
now number more than the three dozen. One 
little mite of five was found last winter in a 
Labrador hut, deserted, half -starved, and nearly 
frozen to death. She was kept by a kindly neigh- 
bour until the ice conditions allowed of her being 
brought here. The other two, brother and sister, 
were found, the girl clothed in a sack, her one 
and only garment, and the boy in bed, minus 
even that covering. This is the type of child who 
comes to us. 

The doctor in charge has just paid me a visit. 
He says there is an epidemic of smallpox in the 
island, and he wants all the children to be vac- 
cinated. The number of cases of smallpox this 
year in this "insignificant little island" is 
greater pro rata than in any other country of 
the world. So two o'clock this afternoon is the 
time set apart for the massacre of the innocents. 

The laugh is against me ! Two of our boys fell 
ill with a mysterious sickness, and tenderly and 
155] , 



LE PETIT NORD 



carefully were they nursed by me and fed with 
delicate portions from the king's table. I later 
learned with much chagrin that "chewing to- 
bacco" (strictly forbidden) was the cause of this 
sudden onset. My sense of humour alone saved 
the situation for them! 



56 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

The Children's Home 
August 19 

In response to my frantic cables your box 
reached here safely, but it has not reached me. 
Picture if you can my amazed incredulity yes- 
terday to see an exact replica of myself as I once 
was, walking on the dock. I rubbed my eyes and 
stared. Yes, it was my purple gown. My first 
impulse was to jerk it off the culprit, but I de- 
cided on more diplomatic tactics. A very little 
detective work elucidated the mystery. You had 
addressed the box in care of the Mission, think- 
ing doubtless, in your far-sighted, Scotch way, 
that if sent to an individual, the said individual 
would have duty to pay. Knowing all too well 
the chronic state of my pocket-book, you antici- 
pated untoward complications. Now, none of 
the Mission staff pay duties. The contents of the 
box were mistaken for reinforcements for the 
charity clothing store, and to-day my purple 
chambray gown, "to memory dear," walks the 
[57] 



LE PETIT NORD 



street on another. Sic transit. I should add that 
one of the modernists of our harbour has chosen 
it. The old conservatives regard our collarless 
necks and abbreviated skirts with horror. What 
with the loss en route of several necessary arti- 
cles of apparel, and the discovery of this further 
depletion of my wardrobe, I regard the oncom- 
ing winter with some misgivings. 

One of the crew on the Northern Light, alias 
the Prophet, so-called because he is spirit 
brother to the Prophet of Doom, took a keen 
relish in my discomfiture, or I fancied he did. He 
it was who put the question in the doctor's Bible 
class, "Is it religious to wear overalls to church? " 
The house officer had carefully saved a pair of 
clean khaki trousers to honour the Sunday serv- 
ices, but in the local judgment they were no fit 
garment for the Lord's house. Local judgment, I 
may add, was not so drastic in its strictures on 
boudoir caps. Some very pretty ones came to 
service on the heads of the choir, but the verdict 
[58] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

was a unanimously favourable one. A nomadic 
Ladies 9 Home Journal was responsible for their 
origin. 

"Out of the mouths of babes," etc. I have 
been trying to teach the little ones the thir- 




59 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



teenth chapter of Corinthians. Whilst undress- 
ing Solomon the other night I had occasion, or 
it seemed to me that I had, to speak somewhat 
sharply to one of the others. When I turned my 
attention again to Solomon, he enunciated sol- 
emnly in his baby tones, "Though I speak with 
the tongues of men and of angels and have not 
love, I am become as sounding brass and a tin- 
kling cymbal." 

You complain most unjustly that I do not 
give a chronological account of events. I give 
you the incidents which punctuate my days, 
and as for the background, nothing could be 
simpler than to fill it in. 

To divert your mind from such adverse criti- 
cism, let me tell you that there is a strong sus- 
picion abroad that I am a devout adherent of the 
Roman Church. Rumours of this have been com- 
ing to me from time to time, but I determined to 
withhold the news till its source was less in ques- 
tion. Now I have it on the undeniable authority 
[60] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

of the Prophet. I have candles, lighted ones, on 
the dining-room table at dinner. Post hoc, prop- 
ter hoc — and what further proof is needed! 
Ananias has broken yet another window. 



77 



tfl 


i 




Ik 


77 


' 


ft 


!|| 


\\ 




When I questioned him as to when the deed had 
been committed, he replied politely, but mourn- 
fully, that he really could not tell me how many 
years ago it was, as if I were seeking to unearth 
some long undiscovered crime. 



[61 



LE PETIT NORD 



August 25 
The other day Topsy had the misfortune to fall 
out of bed and hit her two front teeth such a vio- 
lent blow on the iron bar of the cot beside hers 
that bits of ivory flew about the dormitory. This 
necessitated a prompt matutinal visit to Dr. B., 
the dentist. As we waited our turn in the Con- 
valescent Room, I overheard one patient-to-be 
remark to his neighbour, "They do be shockin' 
hard on us poor sailors. They says I've got to 
take a bath when I comes into hospital. Why, 
B'y, I has n't had a bath since my mother 
washed me!" 

The ethics of dentistry here are so mixed that 
one needs a Solomon to disentangle them. Mrs. 
"Uncle Life" — her husband is Uncle Eliphalet 
— recently had all her teeth pulled out, or, to 
be more accurate, all her remaining teeth. As the 
operation involved considerable time, labour, 
and novocaine, she was charged for the benefit 
\ 62 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

of the hospital. When two shining sets, uppers 
and lowers, were ready for her, she was as 
pleased as a boy with his first jack-knife; but 
not so Uncle Life. He considered it a work of 
supererogation that not only must one pay to 
have the old teeth removed, but for the new ones 
to replace them. 

Did I ever write you about our chamber- 
maid's feet — the new one? Her name is Ase-* 
nath, and she is so perfectly spherical that if you 
were to start her rolling down a plank she could 
no more stop than can those humpty-dumpty 
weighted dolls. 'Senath's temper is exemplary, 
and her intentions of the best; in fact, she will 
turn into a model maid. 

But the process of turning is in progress at 
the moment. It began with our cook, a pattern 
of neatness and all the virtues, coming into my 
office and complaining, "One^of us '11 have to 
go, miss." 

"What? Which?" I enquired, dazed by the 
[63 J 



LE PETIT NORD 



abruptness of this decision, and wondering 
whether she were referring to me. 

"This morning, miss, you know how hot it 
was? Well, 'Senath comes into the kitchen and 
says to me, 'Tryphena, I finds my feet some- 
thing wonderful.' 'Wash them, and change 
your stockings,' I says. 'Wash them! Why, Try- 
phena, I 'se feared to do that. I might get a chill 
as would strike in.' " 

In a few well-chosen sentences I have ex- 
plained to 'Senath the basic rules of hygiene and 
of this house regarding water and its uses. She 
has decided to stay and accept the inevitable 
weekly bath, but she warns me fairly that if she 
goes "into a decline," I must take the respon- 
sibility with her parents ! 

With your zeal for gardens, and your attach- 
ment to angle- worms — which you will recall I 
do not share — you would be interested in our 
efforts along these lines — the gardens, not the 
worms. In this climate a garden is a lottery, and 
f 64 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

in ten seasons to one a spiteful summer frost will 
fall upon the promising potatoes and kill the lot 
just as they are ripening. The Eskimos at the 
Moravian stations put their vegetal charges to 
bed each night with long covers over the rows. 
The other day, in an old journal about the coun- 
try, I came upon this passage, and it struck me 
"How history does repeat itself." It runs: "The 
soyle along the coast is not deep of earth, but 
bringing forth abundantly peason small, peason 
which our countrymen have sowen have come 
up f aire, of which our Generall had a present ac- 
ceptable for the rarenesse, being the first fruits 
coming up by art and industrie in that desolate 
and dishabited land." I can assure you that the 
sight of a "peason," however small, if it did not 
come out of a tin can, would be an acceptable 
offering to your friend. Even in summer we get 
no fresh vegetables or fruits with the exception 
of occasional lettuce or local berries. The epit- 
ome of this spot is a tin ! In the same old journal 
[65J 



LE PETIT NORD 



Whitbourne goes on to say that "Nature had 
recompensed that only defect and incommoditie 
of some sharpe cold by many benefits — with in- 
credible quantitie and no less varietie of kindes 
of fish in the sea and fresh water, of trouts and 
salmons and other fish to us unknowen." 

I have eaten fish (interspersed liberally with 
tinned stuff) and drunken fish and thought and 
spoken and dreamt fish ever since I arrived. But 
don't pity me for imaginary hardships. I like fish 
better than I do meat, and for that matter our 
winter meat supply is walking past my window 
this minute. He goes by the name of "Billy the 
Ox"; and I am informed that as soon as it 
begins to freeze, he is to be killed and frozen in 
toto, for the winter consumption of the staff, 
patients, and children. So our winter is not to 
consist of one long Friday. 



[66] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



August 28 
You already know the worst about my leanings 
to Papacy; but to-day I propose to set your 
mind at rest on an idea with which you have 
hypnotized yourself — namely, that I am go- 
ing to die of malnutrition during what you are 
pleased to term the "long Arctic winter." I have 
no intention of starving, and as for the "long 
Arctic winter," I do not believe there is any such 
beast, as the farmer said when he looked at the 
kangaroo in the circus. 

I was sitting by my window quietly sewing 
the other day (that sentence alone should reveal 
to you how many miles I have travelled from 
your tutelage) when I overheard one of the chil- 
dren stoutly defending what I took at first to be 
my character. The next sentence disabused me 
— it was my figure under discussion. 

"She's not fat!" averred Topsy. "I'll smack 
you if you says it again." 
[67] 



LE PETIT NORD 



"Well," muttered David, the light of reason 
being thus forcibly borne in upon him, "she may 
not be 'zactly fat, but she 's fine and hearty." 




If this is the case, and my mirror all too 
plainly confirms the verdict, and the summer 
has not waned, what will the "last estate of 
that woman be," after the winter has passed 
over her? They tell me that every one here puts 
on fat in the cold weather as a kind of windproof 
jacket. I enclose a photograph of me on land- 
ing, so you may remember me as I was. 

No, you need not worry either over communi- 
\ 08 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

cations in the winter. You really ought to have 
an intimate acquaintance with our telegraph 
service, after you have, so to speak, subsidized 
it during the past three months. It runs in win- 
ter as well as summer; and I see no prospect of 
its closing if you keep it on such a sound finan- 
cial basis. Moreover, the building is devoted to 
the administration of the law in all its branches. 
One half of it is the post and telegraph office, 
while the other serves as the jail. The whole 
structure is within a stone's throw of the church 
and school, as if the corrective institutions of the 
place believed in intensive cultivation. But to 
return to the jail. The walls are very thin, and 
every sound from it can be plainly heard in the 
telegraph office adjoining. Friday morning the 
operator, a capable and long-suffering young 
woman, came over to complain to the doctor 
that she really found it impossible to carry out 
the duties of her office, if the feeble-minded 
Delilah Freak was to be incarcerated only six 
[69] 



LE PETIT NORD 



inches distant from her car. It seems that Deli- 
lah spends her days yelling at the top of her 
lungs, and Miss Dennis states that she prefers 




to take telegraphic messages down in competi- 
tion with the mail steamer's winch rather than 
with Delilah's "bawling." 

I know all about competition in noises 
after trying to write in this house. The ceilings 
are low and thin, and the walls are near and 
thin, and the children are omnipresent and 
not thin, and their wants and their joys and 
their quarrels are as numerous as the fishes 
[70] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

in the sea, and there you have the problem 
in a nutshell. 

Now I must "hapse the door," and hie me to 
bed. As a matter of fact the people here are far 
too honest for us to lock the doors. Such a thing 
as theft is unheard of. Some may call it uncivi- 
lized. I call it the millennium! 



[71 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



August 31 
I believe that the writer who described the cli- 
mate of this country as being "nine months 
snow and three months winter" was not far 
from the truth. In June the temperature of our 
rooms registered just above freezing point, in 
July we were enveloped in continuous fog, and 
in August we are having snow. 

Such a tragic event has occurred. Our lettuce 
has been eaten by the Mission cow! You know 
how hard it is to get anything to grow here. 
Well, after having nearly killed ourselves in 
making a square inch of ground into something 
resembling a bed, we had watched this lettuce 
grow from day to day as the little green shoots 
struggled bravely against the frost and cold. 
Then a few nights ago I was awakened by the 
tinkle of a bell beneath my window. Hastily 
flinging on wrapper and shoes I fled to save our 
one and only ewe lamb. But all the morning 
[ 72] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

light revealed was a desperate cold in the head, 
and an empty bed from which the glory had 
departed. 

Topsy has just been amusing herself by turn- 
ing on the corridor taps to watch the water run 
downstairs! Oh! Topsy, 

"'T is thine to teach us what dull hearts forget 
How near of kin we are to springing flowers." 

News has just reached us that the mail boat 
from St. Barbe to St. Antoine has gone ashore on 
the rocks and is a total wreck. Happily no lives 
were lost, but unhappily wrecks are of such fre- 
quent occurrence on this dangerous coast as to 
excite little comment. 

Drusilla, aged five, has been to my door to en- 
quire if the children may play with their dolls in 
the house. I believe in open-air treatment, so 
I replied with kindness, but firmly withal, that 
"out of doors " was the order of the day. I was a 
little electrified to hear her return to the play- 
room and announce that "Teacher says you are 
[73] 



LE PETIT NORD 



to go out, every darned one of you!" I was 
equally electrified the other day to overhear 
Drusilla enquiring of her fellow philosophers 
which they liked the best, "Teacher, the Doc- 
tor, or the Lord Jesus Christ." 

In the midst of writing to you I was called 
away to interview a young man from the other 
side of the harbour. He wanted me to give him 
some of the milk used in the Home, for his baby, 
as at the hospital they could only furnish him 
with canned milk, guaranteed by the label, he 
claimed, to give "typhoid, diphtheria, and scar- 
let fever"! 



[74] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



September 7 
It is a windy, rainy night, and I have told 
Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come 
with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger 
she was heard to mutter that " Teacher would n't 
let her go to church because she was afraid she 
would get too good." 

The fall of the year is coming on and the eve- 
nings are made wonderful by two phenomena — 
the departure of the cannibalistic flies, and the 
Northern lights. Twice at home I remember 
seeing an attenuated aurora and thinking it 
wonderful. No words can describe this display 
on these crisp and lovely nights. There is a tang 
and snap in the air, and the earth beneath and 
the heavens above seem vibrating with un- 
earthly life. The Eskimos say that the Northern 
lights are the spirits of the dead at play, but I 
like to think of them, too, as the translated souls 
of the icebergs which have gone south and met a 
[75] 



LE PETIT NORD 



too warm and watery death in the Gulf Stream. 
Certainly all the colours of those lovely mon- 
archs of the North are reflected dimly in the 
heavens. The lights move about so constantly 
that one fancies that the soul of the berg, freed 
at last from its long prison, is showing the aston- 
ished worlds of what it is capable. The odd thing 
was that when I first saw them on a clear night, 
the stars shone through them, only they looked 
like Coleridge's "wan stars which danced be- 
tween." 

I can vouch for the truth of another "side- 
light," though from only one experience. One 
night last week, clear and frosty, I had just gone 
to my room at about eleven o'clock when the 
doctor called me to come out and "hear the 
lights." I thought surely I must have misun- 
derstood, but on reaching the balcony and lis- 
tening, I could distinctly hear the swish of the 
"spirits" as they rushed across the sky. It 
sounds like a diminished silk petticoat which 
[ 76 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

has lost its blatancy, but retains its person- 
ality. 

Little did I realize at the time my good for- 
tune in arriving here in daylight. It seems that 
it is the invariable habit of all coastal steamers 
to reach here at night, and dump the dumbly 
resenting passengers in the darkness into the 
tiny punts which cluster around the ship's side. 
Since my arrival every single boat has appeared 
shortly before midnight, or shortly after. In 
either case it means that the men of the Mis- 
sion must work all night landing patients and 
freight, and the next day there is a chastened 
and sleepy community to meet the forthcoming 
tasks. It is especially hard on the hospital folk, 
for the steamer only takes about twenty hours 
to go to the end of her run and return, and they 
try and send those cases which do not have to be 
admitted back by the same boat on her southern 
journey. This means an all-night clinic. But I 
can say to the credit of the patients and staff 
[77] 



LE PETIT NORD 



that I have never heard one word of complaint. 
That is certainly a charming feature about this 
life. There are plenty of things to growl about, 
but one is so reduced to essentials that the 
ones selected are of more importance than those 
which afford such fruitful topics in civilization. 

I have just overheard Gabriel informing the 
other children that "Satan was once an angel, 
but he got real saucy, so God turned him out of 
heaven." Paradise Lost in a sentence! 

The night after the audible lights a furious 
rain and wind storm broke over us. No wonder 
the trees have such a struggle for existence, if 
these storms are frequent. They do not last long, 
but they are the real thing while they are in 
progress. I used to smile when I was told that 
the Home was riveted with iron bolts to the solid 
bedrock, but that night when I lay wide awake, 
combating an incipient feeling of mal de mer as 
my bed rocked with the force of the gale, I 
thanked the fates for the foresight of the build- 
[78] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

ers. Never before had I believed in the tale of the 
church having been blown bodily into the har- 
bour; but during those wild hours of darkness 
I was certain at each succeeding gust that we 
were going to follow its example. 

Dawn — a pale affair looking out suspiciously 
on the chastened world — broke at last, and I 
"histed" my window (to quote the estimable 
'Senath). The rain had stopped. The cheated 
wind was whistling around the corners of the old 
wooden buildings, and taking out its spite on 
any passers-by who must venture forth to work. 
The harbour, usually so peaceful and so shel- 
tered, was lashed into a cauldron of boiling 
white foam, and the rocks were swept so clean 
that they at least had "shining morning 
faces." 

I dressed quickly and ran down to the wharf 

to enquire as to the health of the Northern 

Light. The first person I met was the Prophet. 

He was positively elate. If I were a pantheist 

[79] 



LE PETIT NORD 



I should think him a relative of the northeast 
wind. The storm of the previous night had been 
exactly to his liking. All his worst prognostica- 
tions had been fulfilled, and quite a bit thrown 
in par dessus le marche. He told me that a tiny, 
rickety house across the harbour had first been 
unroofed, and then one of the walls blown in. It 
is a real disaster for the family, for they are poor 
enough without having Kismet thus descend 
upon them. 

The hospital boat had held on safely, but 
several little craft were driven ashore. Natu- 
rally the children love the aftermath of such an 
event, for the world is turned for them into one 
large, entrancing puddle, bordered with em- 
bryo mud pies. 

Topsy again! I am informed that she has 
tried to convert her Sunday best into a hobble 
skirt, reducing it in the process to something 
hopelessly ludicrous. It can never, never be 
worn again. 

\ 80 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

My arm aches and I cannot decide whether it 
is from much orphan scrubbing or from much 
writing, but in either case I must bid you au 
revoir. 



[81] 



LE PETIT NORD 



September 25 
Last night I was awakened by a terrific noise 
proceeding from the lower regions. Armed with 
my umbrella, the only semblance of a stick 
within reach, I descended on a tour of investiga- 
tion. Opening the larder door I beheld six huge 
dogs, and devastation reigning supreme. These 
dogs are half wolf in breed, and very destruc- 
tive, as I can testify. When I wildly brandished 
my umbrella, which could not possibly have 
harmed them, they jumped through the closed 
window, leaving not a pane of glass behind. 
This, I suppose, is merely a nocturnal interlude 
to break the monotony of life in a country 
which boasts no burglars. 

The children attend the Mission school, and 
yesterday Topsy was sent home in dire disgrace 
for lying and cheating. She is not to be per- 
mitted to return until she is willing to confess 
and apologize. She thereupon tried to commit 
[ 82] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



suicide by swallowing paper pellets, and in the 
night the doctor had to be called in to prescribe. 
She is white and wan to-day, but when I went in 
to bid her good-night I found her thrilling over a 
new prayer which she had learned, and which 
she repeated to me with deep emotion: 

"Little children, be ye wise, 
Speak the truth and tell no lies. 
The Lord's portion is to dwell 
Forever in the flames of hell." 

I want to tell you something about our ba- 
bies. They are four in number. David, aged five, 
considers himself quite a big boy, and a leader 
of the others. His father was frozen to death in 
Eskimo Bay some years ago whilst hunting food 
for his family. Although David is always boast- 
ing of his strength and the superior wisdom of 
his years, yet he is really very tiny for his age. 
He is a delightful little optimist, who announces 
cheerfully after each failure to do right that he 
is "going to be good all the time now," to which 
[83] 



LE PETIT NORD 



we add the mental reservation, "until next 
time." He is the proud possessor of a Teddy 
bear. This long-suffering animal was a source of 
great pleasure until a short time ago when David 
started making a first-hand investigation to find 
out where the "squeak" came from — an in- 
vestigation which ended disastrously for the 
bear, however it may have furthered the cause 
of science. 

Last month I went to Nameless Cove to fetch 
to the Home a little boy of three, of whom I 
have already written you. Nameless Cove is 
about twelve miles west of St. Antoine. I have 
never seen such a wretched hovel — a one- 
roomed log hut, completely destitute of furni- 
ture. The door was so low I had to bend almost 
double to enter. A rough shelf did duty for a bed, 
upon which lay an old bedridden man, while at 
the other end lay a sick woman with a child 
beside her, and crouched below was an idiot 
daughter. Altogether nine persons lived in this 
r 84 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

hut, eight adults and this one boy. Ananias is 
an illegitimate child, and has lived with these 
grandparents since his mother lost her reason 
and was removed to the asylum at St. John's. 
The child was almost destitute of clothing, and 
covered with vermin. He has the face of a ser- 
aph, and a voice that lisps out curses with the 
fluency of a veteran trooper. Ananias is David's 
shadow; he follows him everywhere, and echoes 
all his words as if they were gems of wisdom, far 
above rubies. Indeed, when David has ceased 
speaking, one waits involuntarily for Ananias to 
begin in his shrill treble tones. He is a hopeless 
child to correct, for when you imagine you are 
scolding him very severely, and you look for the 
tears of penitence to flow, he puts up his little 
face with an angelic smile, and lisps, "Tiss me." 
Drusilla, whose slight acquaintance you have 
already made, is three and comes from Savage 
Cove. The father has gradually become blind 
and the mother is crippled. Drusilla keeps us all 
[85] 



LE PETIT NORD 



on the alert, for we never know what she will be 
doing next. On Sunday mornings she is put to 
rest with the other little ones while we are at 
church. On returning last Sunday I found that 
she had secured a box of white ointment 
(thought to be quite beyond her reach), and 
with her toothbrush painted one side of the 
baby's face white, which with her other rosy 
cheek gave her the appearance of a clown. Not 
content with portrait painting, Drusilla then 
turned her energies to house decoration, the re- 
sult attained on the wall being entirely to the 
satisfaction of the artist, as was evidenced by 
the proud smile with which our outcry was 
greeted. 

The real baby is Beulah, just two years, and 
she exercises her gentle but despotic sway over 
all, from the least to the greatest. She is contin- 
ually upsetting the standard of neatness which 
was once the glory of this Home, by sprawling 
on the floors, dragging after her a headless doll 
[86] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

with sawdust oozing from every pore. A dilapi- 
dated bunny and several mangled pictures com- 
plete the procession. It is hopeless to protest, 
for she just looks as if she could not understand 
how any one could object to such priceless treas- 
ures. She awakens us at unconscionable hours 
in the morning, when all reasonable beings are 
still sleeping the sleep of the just, and keeps up a 
perpetual chatter interspersed with highly dan- 
gerous gymnastic feats upon her bed. 

Can you find any babies throughout the Brit- 
ish Isles to match mine? 



[87] 



LE PETIT NORD 



October 20 
Since last I wrote you we have had a very 
strenuous time in the Home; the entire family 
has been down with measles. Then when that 
was over and the children well, the sewing maid, 
whom I had engaged shortly after my arrival, 
gave notice, shook the dust from her feet, and I 
was left single-handed. It took the whole of my 
time to keep these forty-odd infants fed, clothed, 
and washed, and I had no leisure to write to you 
even at "scattered times." It seemed to me that 
the appetites of these enfants terribles grew ab- 
normally, that their clothes rent asunder with 
lightning-like rapidity, and that they fell into 
mud heaps with even greater facility than usual. 
It was sometimes a delicate problem to decide 
which of many pressing duties had the prior 
claim. Whether to try and feed the hungry (the 
kitchen range having sprung a leak), to start to 
repair two hundred odd garments (the weekly 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

mend), or to resuscitate one of the babies (just 
rescued from the reservoir). At such times I 
would wonder if I were somewhere near attain- 
ing to that state of experience when I should be 
able to appreciate your alluring phrase, "the 
fun of mothering an orphanage." 

I must begin and tell you now about the chil- 
dren we have received since my last letter. Mike, 
aged eight, came to us from St. Barbe Hospital, 
as he had no home to which he could return. In- 
cidentally it takes the entire staff to keep this 
boy moderately tidy, for he and his garments 
have an unfortunate inclination to part asunder, 
and we are kept in constant apprehension for 
the credit of the Orphanage. But Mike, whether 
with his clothes or without, always turns up 
smiling and on excellent terms with himself, en- 
tirely regardless of the mental torture we endure 
as he comes into view. Indeed, the wider apart 
are his garments, the broader is his smile. Pie 
weeps quietly each night as we wash him, for 
[89] 



LE PETIT NORD 



that is a work of supererogation for which he has 
at present no use. 

Deborah and her brother Gabriel were here 
when I came. Their ages are eleven and five, and 
they come from the far north. Deborah was in 
the Mission Hospital at Iron Bound Islands for 
some time as the result of a burning accident. 
While trying to lift a pan of dog-food from the 
stove she upset the scalding contents over her 
legs. Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen 
miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor 
child must have suffered greatly. Gabriel is a 
very naughty, but equally lovable child. He is 
never out of mischief, but he is always very 
penitent for his misdeeds — afterwards ! His 
bent is towards theology, and he speaks with the 
authority of an ancient divine on all matters 
pertaining thereto, and with an air of finality 
which brooks no argument. When some one was 
being given the priority in point of age over me, 
he was heard to indignantly exclaim that "Jesus 
[ 90] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

and Teacher are the oldest people in the world." 
He is no advocate for the equality of the sexes, 
and closes all discussion on equal rights by ex- 
plaining that "God made the boys and Jesus 
the girls." 

Our fast-coming winter is sending its harbin- 
gers, seen and unseen, into our harbour. Chief 
among these one notices the assertiveness of the 
dogs. All through the summer they slink pariah- 
like about the place, eating whatever they can 
pick up, and seeking to keep their miserable ex- 
istence as much in the background as possible. 
Now the winter is approaching, and it is "their 
little day." Mrs. Uncle Life can testify to the 
fact that they are not wholly suppressed when 
it is not "their little day." Last summer she 
found no less important a personage than the 
leader of the team in her bed. Her newly baked 
"loaf" was lying on the pantry shelf before the 
open window. Whiskey (this place is strictly 
prohibition, but every team boasts its "Whis- 
[01 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



key ") leaped in, made a satisfying banquet off 
her bread, and then forced open the door into 
her bedroom adjoining the pantry. He found it a 
singularly barren field for adventure, but after 




his unaccustomed hearty meal the bed looked 
tempting. He was found there two hours later 
placidly asleep. 

The children are looking forward to Christ- 
mas and are already writing letters to Santa 
Claus, which are handed to me with great se- 
crecy to mail to him. I once watched the little 
[92] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

ones playing at Christmas with an old stump of 
a bush to which they attached twigs as gifts and 
gravely distributed them to one another. When 
I saw one mite handing a dead twig to a smaller 
edition of himself, and announcing in a lordly 
fashion that it was a piano, I realized what 
Father Christmas was expected to be able to 
produce. 



[93] 



LE PETIT NORD 



November 1 
My world is transformed into fairyland. Light 
snow has fallen during the night, and every 
"starigan," every patch of "tuckamore" is 
"decked in sparkling raiment white." As I was 
dressing I looked out of my window, and for the 
first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik 
passing. 

The day was full of adventure. For the chil- 
dren the snow meant only rejoicing; but as the 
highway was as slippery as glass, and the older 
folk had not yet got their "winter legs," there 
were many minor casualties. Mrs. Uncle Life, 
aged seventy and small and spherical, solved the 
problem of the hills by sitting down and sliding. 
She commended the method to me, saying that 
it served very well on week days, but was lam- 
entably detrimental to her Sunday best. 

Ananias is developing fast and bids fair to 
rival Topsy. He has a mania for eating anything 
[94] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



and everything, and what he cannot eat, he de- 
stroys. Within the past few weeks he has swal- 
lowed the arm of his Teddy bear, half a cake of 








soap, and a tube of tooth-paste. He has also bit- 
ten through two new hot-water bottles. During 
the short time he has been here he has broken 
more windows than any other child in the Home. 
[95] 



LE PETIT NORD 



If he thinks politeness will save the day, he 
says in the sweetest way possible, "Excuse me, 
Teacher, for doing it"; but if he sees by my face 
that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the 
most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a 
pain." 

I must make you acquainted with our 
"Yoho." Every well-regulated fishing village 
has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, 
the Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our 
more prosaic parlance it is plain "ghost." Many 
years ago when the Mission was in need of a 
building in which to accommodate some of its 
workers, it purchased a house belonging to a 
local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy. 
This made an admirable Guest House; but it has 
since fallen into disuse for its original purpose, 
and is being employed as a temporary repository 
for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new 
storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest 
House has been selected by our local apparition 
[ 96] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

as a place of visitation. It is affirmed, on the 
incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and 
no inconsiderable following, that the spirit re- 
turns of an evening to the old house he built 
forty years ago, to wander through the familiar 
rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and 
though all our investigation has failed to reveal 
any presence (barring the rats), bodily or other- 
wise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a 
long minute before he would enter the haunted 
spot after nightfall. Rumour has it that the 
Guest House is built on the site of an old French 
cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore 
cannot lack for society, though how congenial it 
is cannot be determined. Judging from the rec- 
ords of the ceaseless rows between the French 
and English on Le Petit Nord, there must be 
some lively nights in ghostland. 

The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished 
to steal the clothing, this spook would be his 
most effective accomplice, but such tortuous 
[97] 



LE PETIT NORD 



psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. 
To them we seem callous souls, to whom the 
spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment 
on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more 
than one inconvenient result. The Mission is 
very short of houses for its workmen, and was 
planning to rebuild and put in order a part of 
this now haunted domicile for one family. The 
man for whom it was destined now refuses to 
live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. 
In this land the word of the rising generation is 
law, and this refusal is therefore final. 

The children of this North Country are given 
what they wish and when and how. Naturally 
the results of such a policy are serious. There are 
many cases of hopeless cripples about here who 
refused to go to hospital for treatment when 
their trouble was so slight that it could have 
been rectified. Now the children must look for- 
ward to a life of disability through their par- 
ents' short-sightedness. But when I think of 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

what it means to these poor women to have per- 
haps ten children to care for, and all the rest of 
the work of the house and garden on their shoul- 
ders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace 
at any price." 

Spirits might be called the outstanding fea- 
ture of our harbour, for the Piquenais rocks at 
the very entrance are the abode of another fa- 
miliar revenant. The Prophet assures me that 
thirty years ago a vessel and crew were wrecked 
there, and on every succeeding stormy evening 
since that day, the captain, with creditable per- 
severance, waves his light on that wind- and 
surf -swept rock. In this instance the prophetical 
authority is in dispute, for there are those who 
assert that the light is shown by fairies to toll 
boats to their doom on the foggy point. The 
more scientifically minded explain the mysteri- 
ous light as a defunct animal giving out gas. It 
must be a persistent gas which can retain its 
efficacy for thirty long and adventurous years. 
[99] 



LE PETIT NORD 



In the course of these researches several in- 
teresting points of natural history and science 
have been elucidated. Doubtless you do not 




know that all cats are related to the devil, but 

you can readily see the brimstone in their fur if 

you have the temerity to rub them on a dusky 

f 100 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



evening. Neither has it come to your attention 
that under no consideration must you allow the 
water in which potatoes have been washed to 
run over your hands. In the latter event, warts 
innumerable will result. 

Our cook has just come in with the news that 
supper is not to be forthcoming. 'Senath was 
left in charge while Tryphena went on an errand 
for me. Left-over salad was to have formed the 
basis of the evening meal, but the said basis has 
now disintegrated, 'Senath having placed the 
dish in a superheated oven. The nature of the 
resultant object is indeterminate, but uneat- 
able. I solace myself that sanctified starva- 
tion will be beneficial to my "fine and hearty" 
figure. 

We have suffered again with the dogs. One of 
the children's birthdays fell on Saturday, and 
we decided to give the whole "crew" ice-cream 
to fittingly celebrate the event. It was made in 
good time and put out to keep cool in what we 
[ 101 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



took to be a safe spot. The party preceding the 
piece de resistance was in full swing when an 
ominous disturbance was detected from the di- 
rection of the woodshed. Investigation revealed 
two angry dogs alternately snarling at each 
other and devouring the last lick of the treat. 
The catholicity of canine taste was no solace to 
the aggrieved assembly. 

[ The children have lately been making excur- 
sions into the theological field. The latest prob- 
lem brought to me for settlement was, "Does 
God live in the Methodist Church?" Truly a 
two-horned dilemma. If I said "yes" the an- 
thropomorphic teaching was undoubted; while 
if the answer were in the negative I should be 
guilty of fostering the abominable denomina- 
tional spirit which ruins this land. My reply 
must have been unconvincing, for I overheard 
the children later deciding, the Methodist 
Church having been barred as a place of resi- 
dence, that the attic was the only remaining 
[ 102 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

possibility. It is the one spot in the Home un- 
visited by them, and therefore "unseen." 

Unseemly altercations have summoned me 
to the kitchen, and I return to close this over- 
long chronicle. I was met there by Tryphena, a 
large sheet in her hands, and an accusing expres- 
sion on her face which stamped her as a family 
connection of the Prophet's. 

"It's not my fault, miss," she began. 

"No, Tryphena? Well, whose is it, and what 
is it?" 

"Look at that sheet, miss, a new one. 'Senath 
was ironing, and had folded it just ready to put 
away. Then she suddenly wants a drink, so she 
goes off leaving the iron in the middle of the 
sheet. Half an hour later she remembers. When 
she got back, of course the iron had burnt its 
way straight through all the layers." 

Aside from destruction, in what direction 
would you say that 'Senath's forte did lie? 

[ 103 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



November 17 
I have received your letter with its pointed re- 
marks about the long delays of the mail-carrier. 
I consider them both unnecessary and unkind. 
But as David would say, " I am going to be good 
all the time now." 

We have this moment returned from church, 
to which the children love to go; it is the great 
excitement of the week. They sit very quietly, 
except Topsy, but how much they understand I 
cannot say. The people sing with deliberation, 
each syllable being made to do duty for three, 
to prolong the enjoyment — or the agony — ac- 
cording as your musical talent decides. Fre- 
quently there is no one to play the instrument, 
and the hymns are started several times, until 
something resembling the right pitch is struck. 
Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a 
common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly 
until the inevitable crash at the end of the 
f 104 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and 
try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced 
cherubs with hymn books in order that 

"Their voices may in tune be found 
Like David's harp of solemn sound " 

— excuse the adaptation. This morning the serv- 
ice was particularly dreary. Hymn after hymn 
started to end in conspicuous failure, followed 
by an interminable discourse on the sufferings of 
the damned. But we ended cheerfully by war- 
bling forth the joys of heaven — 

"Where congregations ne'er break up 
And Sabbaths never end!" 

Last week we had a thrilling event; one of the 
girls formerly in this Home was married, and we 
all went to the wedding, even the little tots who 
are too young for regular services. They after- 
wards told me they would like to go on Sundays, 
so I imagine they think the marriage ceremony a 
regular item of Divine worship. Alas! I almost 
disgraced myself when the clergyman solemnly 
r 105 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



announced to the intending bride and bride- 
groom that the holy estate of matrimony had 
been "ordained of God for the persecution of 
children"! 

How you would have laughed to see me the 
other night. The steamer arrived at midnight, 
and as we were expecting some children I went 
down to meet them. There were three little boys, 
Esau, Joseph, and Nathan, eight, six, and four 
years of age. I bore them in triumph to the bath- 
room, feeling that even at that late hour cleanli- 
ness should be compulsory. But I soon desisted 
from my purpose and as quickly as possible 
bundled the dirty children into my neat, snowy 
beds! They kicked, they fought, they bit, they 
yelled and they swore! All my sleeping inno- 
cents awoke at the noise and added their voices 
to the confusion. I momentarily expected an in- 
rush of neighbours, and a summons the follow- 
ing day for cruelty to children. 
\ 106 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Uriah has come to inform me that he cannot 
"cleave the splits," as his "stomach has cap- 
sized." I felt it incumbent to administer a dose 
of castor oil, thinking that might be sufficient 
punishment for what I had reason to believe was 
only a dodge to escape work. It was hard for me 
to give the oil, but harder still to have the boy 
look up after it with a quite cherubic smile, and 
ask if it were the same oil as Elisha gave the 
widow woman! 

Whatever can survive in this land of difficul- 
ties survives with a zeal and vitality which only 
proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. 
The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are 
proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf 
rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and 
shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their 
footmarks are as big as those of young puppies 
(withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids 
on man and beast alike ally them with the horde 
Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One 
[ 107 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



morning Miss Perrin, the head nurse, awakened 
to find one of her prize North Labrador boots 
gnawed to the rim. All that remained to tell the 




[ 108] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

tale was the bright tape by which it was hung 
up, and the skin groove through which the tape 
threads. 

On the next occasion of their public ap- 
pearance the night nurse was summoned by 
agonized shrieks to the children's ward. A large 
rodent had climbed upon Ishimay's bed and bit- 
ten her. There were the marks of his teeth in her 
hand, and the blood was dripping. Nor do they 
limit their depredations to the hospital. The 
barn man turned over a bale of hay last week 
and disclosed no less than twenty-seven rats 
young and old, fat and lean, though chiefly fat. 
I rejoice to record that this galaxy at least has 
departed Purgatory-wards. The dentist left a 
whole bag of clean linen on the floor of his bed- 
room. The morning following he found that the 
raiders had eaten their way through the sack, 
cutting a series of neat round holes in each 
folded garment as they progressed. The scuffling 
and the squealing and the scraping and the 
f 109 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



gnawing and the scratching of rats in the walls 
and cupboards are worse than any phalanx of 
"Yohos" ever summoned from spookland! Oh! 
Pied Piper of Hamelin, why tarry so long! 



[110] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



December 14 
The last boat of the season has come and gone 
and now we settle down to the real life of the 
winter. Plans innumerable are under way for 
winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe 
over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. 
Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is 
even more difficult than usual. 

For days before the last steamer finally 
reached us there were speculations as to her 
coming. Rumour, a healthy customer in these 
parts, three times had it that she had gone back, 
having given up the unequal contest with the 
ice. As all our Christmas mail was aboard her, 
the atmosphere was tense. Then came the news 
from Croque that she was there, busily unload- 
ing freight. Six hours later her smoke was 
sighted, and from the yells my bairns set up, you 
would have thought that the mythical sea ser- 
pent was entering port. She butted her way into 
[ ml 



LE PETIT NORD 



the standing harbour ice as far as she could get, 
and promptly began discharging cargo. Teams 
of dogs sprang up seemingly out of the snow- 
covered earth, and in a mere twinkling our 
frozen and silent harbour was an arena of activ- 
ity. The freight is dumped on the ice over the 
ship's side with the big winch, and each man 
must hunt for his own as it descends. Some of 
the goods are dropped with such a thud that the 
packages "burst abroad." This is all very well if 
the contents are of a solid and resisting nature; 
but if butter, or beans, or such like receive the 
shock, most regrettable results ensue. 

During the hours of waiting here she froze 
solidly into the ice, and had to be blasted out 
before she could commence her journey to the 
southward. She has taken the mails with her, 
and this letter must come to you by dog team — 
your first by that method. 

In the early part of this summer three little 

orphan girls came to us from Mistaken Cove. 

[ 112 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Their names are Carmen, Selina, and Rachel, 
and their ages, ten, seven, and five. Their father 
has been dead for some years, and the mother 
recently died of tuberculosis. They did look such 
a pathetic little trio when they first arrived. I 
went down to the wharf to meet them, and three 
quaint little figures stepped from the hospital 
boat, with dresses almost to their feet. Carmen 
held the hands of her two sisters, and greeted me 
with "Are you the woman wot's going to look 
after we? " I assured her that I hoped to perform 
that function to the best of my ability, and then 
she confided to me that she had brought with 
her a box containing her mother's dresses and 
her mother's hair. I fancy the responsibility of 
the entire household must have rested on Car- 
men's tiny shoulders; she is like a little old 
woman, and even her voice is care-worn. I 
hunted up some dolls for the two younger kid- 
dies, but had not the courage to offer one to 
their elder sister. She evidently felt that dolls 
[ 113] 



LE PETIT NORD 



were altogether too precious for common use, 
and carefully explained to her charges that they 
were only for Sundays! When I next went to the 
playroom it was to find the three little sisters 
sitting solemnly in a row on the locker with their 
dolls safely packed away beneath. I persuaded 
them that dolls were not too good for "human 
nature's daily food," and since then they have 
been supremely happy with their babies. 

Carmen is so devoted to little Rachel that she 
cannot bear the thought of her being in trouble. 
Rachel is very human, and in the brief time she 
has been with us has had many falls from the 
paths of rectitude. 

One day shortly after their arrival Rachel had 
been naughty, and I had taken her upstairs to 
explain to her the enormity of her offence, Car- 
men standing meanwhile at the bottom of the 
stairs wringing her hands. When Rachel reap- 
peared and announced that she had not even 
been punished, Carmen was seen to give her a 
[ 114] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

good slap on her own account, although evi- 
dently well pleased that no one else had dared to 
touch her child. Carmen is extremely religious, 
and her prayers at night are lengthy and devout. 
She starts off with the Lord's Prayer, the Apos- 
tles' Creed; several collects follow, and she con- 
cludes with a "Hail Mary!" 

You have already made the acquaintance of 
Billy the Ox, the now dear departed, who con- 
stitutes our winter's frozen meat supply. Our 
allotted portion of him is hung in the balcony 
outside my window. Being on the second floor 
it was thought to be sanctuary from marauders. 
Last night I was awakened by an uneasy feeling 
of a presence entering my room. Starting up, I 
made out in the moonlight the great tawny 
form of one of our biggest dogs. He was in the 
balcony making so far futile leaps to secure a sec- 
tion of Billy. My shout discouraged him, and he 
jumped off the roof to the snow beneath. He had 
managed to scale the side of the house — but 
f 115 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



how? For some time I was at a loss to discover, 
till I remembered a ladder which had been 
placed perpendicularly against the wall on the 
other side. One of the double windows had 
broken loose in a recent storm of wind, and the 
barn man had had to go up and mend it. True to 
type he had left the ladder in statu quo. Up mas- 
ter dog had climbed straight into the air, along 
the slippery rungs of the ladder. When he 
reached the level of the tempting odour, he had 
alighted on the balcony roof. Then, pursuing 
the odour to its lair, he had discovered Billy, 
and me! 

At breakfast I told my adventurette, and the 
story was instantly capped with others. Only 
one shall you have. The doctor was away on 
a travel last winter, and late one blustersome 
night came to a little village. He happened to 
have a very beautiful leader of which he was 
inordinately careful, so he asked his host for the 
night if he had a shed into which he could put 
f 116] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Spider out of the weather. "Why, to be sure, 
just at the left of the door." It was dark and 
blowing, and the doctor went outside and thrust 
the beastie into the only building in sight. After 
breakfast he went with his host to get the dogs. 



/ 



s 




When he started to open the door of the shelter 
in which Spider was incarcerated, the fisherman 
burst out in dismay, "You never put him in 
there? That's where I keeps my only sheep." 
At that second the dog appeared, a spherical 
and satisfied specimen. He had taken the stran- 
ger in — completely. 

[ 117] 



LE PETIT NORD 



The cold is intense, and to combat it in these 
buildings of green lumber is a task worthy of 
Hercules. We make futile attempts to keep the 
pipes from freezing; but the north wind has a 
new trump each night. He squeezes in through 
every chink and cranny, and once inside the 
house goes whistling malignantly through the 
chilly rooms and corridors. We keep an oil stove 
burning in our bathroom at night with a kettle 
of water on it ready for our morning ablutions. 
To-day, when I went in to dress — one does not 
dress in one's bedroom, but waits in bed till the 
bathroom door's warning slam informs that the 
coast is clear — there was the stove still mer- 
rily burning, and there was the kettle of water 
on it — FROZEN. 

Next month there is to be a sale in Nameless 
Cove, twelve miles to the westward of us. The 
doctor has asked me to attend. I accepted de- 
lightedly, as twenty-four hours free from fear of 
rats and frozen pipes draws me like a magnet. 
[ 118] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Moreover, who would n't be on edge if it were 
one's first dog drive ! 

I found Gabriel crying bitterly in bed the 
other night because he had in a fit of mischief 
thrown a stone at the Northern lights, which is 
regarded as an act of impiety by the Eskimo 
people. It was some time before I could pacify 
the child, or get him to believe that no dire 
results would follow his dreadful deed. But at 
length when "comforting time" was come for 
him, he consoled himself by supposing that 
Teacher must be "stronger than the devil." 



119 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



December 27 
I certainly was never born to be a teacher and 

it is something to discover one's limitations. 
For several Sundays now I have been labour- 
ing to instruct our little ones in the story of the 
birth of Jesus, and I have repeated the details 
again and again in order to impress them upon 
their wandering minds. Last Sunday I ques- 
tioned them, and finally asked triumphantly, 
"Well, David, who was the Babe in the man- 
ger?" With a wild look round the room for in- 
spiration, David enunciated with swelling pride, 
"Beulah, Teacher." 

We had a lovely time on Christmas. The 
night before the children hung up their stock- 
ings, but it was midnight before I could get 
round to fill them, they were so excited and 
wakeful. I "hied me softly to my stilly couch," 
and was just dropping off into delicious slumber 
when at 1 a.m. the strains of musical instru- 
ments (which you had sent) were heard below. 
[ 120 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Then I appreciated to the full the sentiment of 

that poet who sang : 

"Were children silent, we should half believe 
That joy were dead, its lamp would burn so low." 

Later in the day we had our Christmas tree, 
when Topsy was overjoyed at receiving her first 
doll. There is something very sweet about the 
child in spite of all her wilful ways, and she is a 
real little mother to her doll. 

We had a great dinner, as you may imagine. I 
overheard some of the little boys teasing Solo- 
mon, who is only three, to see if he would not 
forgo some particular choice morsel upon his 
plate, to which an emphatic "no" was always 
returned. Then by varying gradations of impor- 
tance came the question, would he give it to 
Teacher? The answer not being considered satis- 
factory, Gabriel felt that the time had come for 
the supreme test, Would Solomon give it to God 
and the angels? The reply left so much to be 
desired that it is better unrecorded. 
[ 121 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman, 
Frangois Detier by name. He came here in his 
youth to escape conscription. The fisher people 
have travelled a long road since the old feuds 
which scarred the early history of Le Petit Nord, 
and Frangois is a much-loved member of the 
community. Since the oncoming of the inoper- 
able tumour, which little by little has deprived 
him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each 
other by helping him. One day a load of wood 
will find its way to his door. The next a few 
fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left 
ever so quietly inside his woodshed — and so 
it goes. It is a constant marvel to me that 
these people, who live so perilously near the 
margin of want, are always so eager to share 
up. Frangois is sitting in our cellar as I write 
pulling nails from old boxes with my new pat- 
ent nail-drawer. A moment ago I could not re- 
sist the temptation of putting the Marseillaise 
on the gramophone, and I went down to find 
[ 122 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

him with tears rolling down his cheeks as he 
hummed, 

"Allons, enfants de la Patrie, 
Le jour de gloire est arrive." 

We've invented a new job for him; he is to 
"serve" our pipes with bandages. This means 
swathing them round and round, and finally add- 
ing an outer covering of newspaper, which has a 
much-vaunted reputation for keeping cold out. 

Let me tell you the latest epic of the hospital 
pipes. Those to the bathroom run through the 
office. In the last blizzard they burst. The fire 
in the fireplace was a conflagration; the steam 
radiator was singing a credible song; and as the 
water trickled down the pipe from the little fis- 
sure, it froze solid before it was three inches on 
its way ! 

A friend sent me for Christmas a charming 
little poem. One verse runs: 

"May nothing evil cross this door, 
And may ill fortune never pry 

f 123 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



About these windows; may the roar 
And rains go by. 

"Strengthened by faith, these rafters will 
Withstand the battering of the storm; 
This hearth, though all the world grow chill, 
Will keep us warm." 

I am thinking of hanging the card opposite our 
pipes as a reminder of the "way they should 
go." 



124 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



January 15 
The journey to Nameless Cove Fair was all that 
I had hoped for and a little more thrown in to 
make weight. Clear and shining, with glittering 
white snow below and sparkling blue sky above, 
the day promised fair in spite of a mercury 
standing at ten below zero, and a number of 
komatiks from the Mission started merrily 
forth. All went well, and we reached Nameless 
Cove without adventure, but at sundown the 
wind rose. When we left the sale at ten o'clock 
to return to the house where I was to spend the 
night, we had to face the full fury of a living 
winter gale. I "caught" both my cheeks on the 
way, or in common parlance I froze them. All 
through that long tug we were cheered by the 
thought of a large jug of cream which we had 
placed on the stove to thaw when we left the 
house. Do you fancy that cream had thawed? 
Not a bit of it. The fire was doing its best, but 
[ 125 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



old Boreas was holding our feast prisoner. It had 
not even begun to disintegrate around the edges. 
We cut lumps from the icy mass, dropped them 
into our cocoa (which we made by cooking it in- 
side the stove and directly on top of the coals), 
hastily popped the mixture into our mouths be- 
fore it should have a chance to freeze en route, 
and went promptly to bed. I draw a veil over 
that night. I drew everything else I could find 
over me in the course of it. A sadder and a wiser 
and a chillier woman I rose the morrow morn. 
Another member of the staff, who had slept in 
an adjoining house, froze his toe in bed. 

When we reached home, and I left the koma- 
tik at the hospital door, I made out 'Senath 
dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our 
platform. She was also waving her arms about. 
For a moment it crossed my mind that she had 
lost her modicum of wits, but as she was im- 
mediately joined by Tryphena, I gave up the 
theory as untenable, and continued to hasten up 
[ 126 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



the hill to the Home. Our boiler had sprung, not 
one but many leaks, and the precious hot water 
destined for the cleansing of forty was flooding 




the already spotless kitchen floor. As it is the 
middle of the week I had not suspected this ca- 
lamity, Sunday being the invariable day se- 
[ 127 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



lected for all burst pipes, special rat banquets, 
broken noses, toothaches, skinned shins, and 
such misadventures. The problem now present- 
ing itself for prompt solution is: 20° below zero, 
a gale blowing from the northwest, twoscore 
small, unwashed orphans, and a burst boiler! 



[ 128 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



January 91 
The oldest inhabitants, and all the others as 
well, claim that this is the most remarkable win- 
ter in thirty years. Not that one is deceived. I 
suspect them rather of making excuses for the 
consistently disconcerting climate of Britain's 
oldest colony. 

All the same, literally the worst storm I ever 
experienced has been in progress for the last two 
days. It began in the morning by the falling of 
a few innocent flakes. Then the north wind de- 
cided to take a hand. All night and all day and 
all night again it shrieked around the house, 
driving incredible quantities of snow before it. 
Half an hour after it began, you could not see 
two yards in front of your face. The man who 
attends to the hospital heating-plant had to 
crawl on his hands and knees in order to reach 
his destination, taking exactly one hour to make 
the distance of two hundred yards. 
[ 129 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



At this institution it is the time-honoured 
custom to rise at five-thirty each morning, 
which custom, although doubtless good for our 
immortal souls, is distinctly trying to our too 
painfully mortal flesh. Added to which, in spite 
of all our efforts, our pipes are frozen, and 
in this country the ground does not thaw out 
completely until July or August, when we are 
making preparations for being frozen in again. 
Think of what this means for a household of 
over forty when every drop of water has to be 
hauled in barrels by our boys, and the super- 
intendent has to stand over them to compel 
them to bring enough. Cleanliness at such a 
cost must surely be a long way towards godli- 
ness. I can now appreciate the story of the 
chaplain from a whaling ship who is said to 
have wandered into an encampment of the Es- 
kimos. He told the people of heaven with all 
its glories, and it meant nothing to these 
children of the North; they were not interested 
[ 130 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

in his story. But when he changed his theme 
and spoke of hell, with its everlasting fires 
which needed no replenishing, they cried, 




"Where is it? Tell us that we may go"; and big 
and little, they clambered over him, eager for 
details. 

By morning every room on the windward side 

of our house looked like the inside of an igloo. 

The fine drift had silted in through each most 

minute cranny and crevice — even though we 

[ 131] 



LE PETIT NORD 



have double windows all over the building; and 
on the night in question we had decided that 
sufficient fresh air was entering in spite of us 
to permit our disobeying our self-imposed anti- 
tuberculosis regulations. The wind and snow are 
so persistent and so penetrating that the merest 
slit gives them entrance, and the accumulations 
of such a night make one fancy in the morning 
that the King of the Golden River has paid an 
infuriated visit to our part of the globe. When I 
went into the babies' dormitory every little bed 
was snowed under, and only the children's dark 
hair contrasted with the universal whiteness. 

The second night I verily thought the house 
would come about our ears. The gale had in- 
creased in fury, the thermometer stood at thirty 
below, and I stayed up to be ready for emer- 
gencies. At midnight, thinking one room must 
surely be blown in, I carried the sleeping babes 
into another wing of the house. If for any reason 
we had had to leave the building that night, 
[ 132 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

none of us could have lived to reach a place of 
safety. I wish you could have seen us the follow- 
ing morning. The snow had drifted in so that in 
places it was over six feet high. I ventured out 
and found that every exit but one from the 
Home was snowed up. We had therefore to dig 
ourselves out of the woodshed door and into 
the others from the outside. You make a dab 
with a shovel in the direction where you think 
you last saw the desired door before the storm, 
and trust the fates for results. Part of our roof 
has blown off and our chimney is in a tottering 
condition. 

The greatest menace was the telegraph wires. 
The drifts in places were so huge that as one 
walked along, the wires were liable to trip one 
up. The doctor has just taken a picture of the 
dog team being fed from the third-story window 
of the hospital. They are clustered on the snow 
just outside and on a level with the bottom of 
the window. Some of the fishermen in their tiny 
[ 133] 



LE PETIT NORD 



cottages had to be dug out by kindly neigh- 
bours, as they were completely snowed under! 

The storm will greatly delay travelling and it 
may be almost spring before this reaches you. It 
may interest you to know how my letters come 
to you in the winter-time, and then perhaps you 
will not wonder so much at the delays. The mail 
is carried across country to Mistaken Cove, on 
the west coast, and then by eight relays of cou- 
riers with their dog teams to Deerlake where the 
railway touches. It is a slow method of progress, 
and there are countless delays owing to the fre- 
quent blizzards. Often the mail men fail to make 
connections, and the letters may lie a week or 
a fortnight at some outlandish station. At one 
place the postmaster cannot even read, and the 
letters have to be marked with crosses at the 
previous stopping-places, to indicate the direc- 
tion of their destination. Another postmaster, 
well known for his dishonesty, failed to get re- 
moved by the authorities because he was the 
[ 134] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



only man in the place who could either read 
or write, and was therefore indispensable. For- 
merly all the letters had to go to St. John's, a 
day's extra journey, and be sorted there, sent 
back across the island to Run-by-Guess, eight 
hours across Cabot Straits, and then across the 
Atlantic to England. In this way a letter might 
take nearly three months to make the journey, 
and we are sometimes that length of time with- 
out news. 

Now a "mild" has set in, and the incessant 
drip, drip, drip on the balcony roof outside my 
window makes me perfectly understand how 
lunacy and death follow the persistent falling of 
a single drop on one spot on the forehead. 



[ 135 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



February 11 
Last week I had a three days' "cruise" while 
the doctor considerately sent a nurse up here ta 
try her hand at my family. This time the cruise 
was "on the dogs" instead of the rolling sea. We 
left for Belvy (Bellevue) Bay in good time in 
the morning — "got our anchors early," as our 
"carter" put it. The animation of the dogs, the 
lovely snow-covered country, the bright win- 
ter's sun pouring down, and doubly brilliant by 
reflection from the dazzling snow, the huge bon- 
fire in the woods where we "cooked the kettle," 
all make one understand the call which the gipsy 
answers. Of course there is another side to the 
story, when one is caught out in bitter weather 
in a blizzard of driving snow and sleet, and loses 
the way, or perhaps has to stay out in the open 
through the night. For instance, this winter four 
of the Mission dogs have perished through frost- 
bite on these journeys; and only last week we 
[ 136 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR ' 

heard that one of the mail carriers on the west 
coast had been frozen to death. 

A few years ago one dark and stormy night 
the Church of England clergyman was called to 
the sick-bed of a parishioner. He set out at once 
to cross the frozen bay and reached the cottage 
in safety. After a visit with the dying man he 
started on his homeward way. It was cold but 
clear, and he covered half the distance without 
trouble. Then the weather veered and blinding 
snow began to drive. The traveller lost his way 
battling against it, and finally sank down ut- 
terly exhausted. He was found dead in the 
morning on the open bay. 

A day's trip brought us to Grevigneux, a 
charming little village nestling in a great bowl 
formed by the towering cliffs above and around 
it. Every one in the settlement is a Roman 
Catholic. Never did I receive such a welcome; 
the people are so friendly and unspoiled. The 
priest is a Frenchman, sensible, hearty, full of 
[ 137 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



humour and love for his people. Both his ideas 
and his manner of expressing them are naive and 
appealing. I had been told that in his sermons 
he admonished certain members of his flock by 
name for their shortcomings. When I questioned 
him about this he gave me the following explana- 
tion: "You see, miss, when I die I shall stand 
before the Lord and my people will be standing 
behind me. The Lord will look them over and 
then look at me, and if any one of them is n't 
there he will say, 'Cartier, where is Tom Flan- 
nigan?' And I should have to answer, 'Gone to 
Purgatory for stealing boots.' And the Lord will 
say to me, 'Why, did n't he know better than to 
steal boots? You ought to have told him.' What- 
ever could I say for myself then? " 

The next night we spent at Lance au Diable, 
locally known as "Lancy Jobble." In this place 
there is a "medicine man," with methods unique 
in science. He is the seventh son of a seventh 
son, and his healing powers are reputed to be 
[ 138 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

little short of miraculous. Legend has it that 
such must never request payment for services, 
nor must the patient ever thank him, lest the 
efficacy of the cure be nullified. He is an unself- 
ish man, a thorough believer in his own "gift"; 
and last summer, for instance, right in the mid- 
dle of the fishing season, he walked thirty miles 
through swamp and marsh ridden with black 
flies, to see a sick woman who desired his aid. 
Doubtless the spell of his buoyant personality 
does bring comfort and relief. In the adjoining 
settlement of Bareneed lives an enormously fat 
old woman of seventy-odd summers. Life passes 
over her, and its only effect is to make her 
rotund and unwieldy. When the sick come to 
Brother Luke for treatment, if any of the few 
drugs which he has accumulated chance to have 
lost their labels — a not uncommon contingency 
in this land of mist and fog — he takes down a 
likely-looking bottle from the shelf, and tries a 
dose of the contents on this Mrs. Goochy — and 
\ 139 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



awaits results. If nothing untoward transpires, 
he then passes the medicine on to the patient. 
Mrs. Goochy has a strong acquisitive bias, and 




raises no objections to this vicarious proceeding. 
She argues: "I does n't need 'un now, but there 
be's no tellin'. I may need 'un when I can't get 



'un." 



Occasionally the sailing is not so smooth. 
While we were there the doctor saw a case of 
a woman from whom this ^Esculapius had at- 
tempted to extract an offending molar, his only 
instrument being a kind of miniature winch 
f 140 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

which screws on to the undesired tooth. Its ac- 
tion proved so prompt and powerful that not 
only did it remove the tooth intended, but four 




others as well, and the entire alveolar process 
connected with them. 

It often made me feel ashamed to find how 
much some of these people have made of their 
meagre opportunities. At one house a mother 
told me that she had only been able to go to 
school for six months when she was a girl, yet 
[ 141 J 



LE PETIT NORD 



she had taught herself to read, and later her chil- 
dren also. She showed me most interesting arti- 
cles which she had written for a Canadian news- 
paper describing the life on Le Petit Nord. She 
often had to sit up until two in the morning to 
knit her children's clothes, and rise again at 
dawn to prepare breakfast for the men of the 
household. 

The following day saw us homeward bound, 
only this time the travelling was not so roman- 
tic, for a "mild" had set in, and the going was 
superlatively slushy. The dogs had all they could 
do to drag the komatik with the luggage on it. 
The humans walked, generally in front of the 
dogs, and on snow racquets, to make the trail 
a bit easier for the animals. This may sound an 
interesting way to spend a winter's day, but after 
twenty minutes of it you would cry "enough." 
When we reached Belvy Bay the ice around the 
shore was broken into great pans, but in the mid- 
dle it looked good. To go round is an endless task, 
\ 142 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

so we risked crossing. It was easy to get off to the 
centre, for the big pans at the edge would float 
a far greater weight than a komatik and dogs 
and three people. The ice in the middle, however, 
which had looked so sure from the landwash, 
proved to be "black" — that is, very, very thin, 
though being salt-water ice, it was elastic. It was 
waving up and down so as almost to make one 
seasick, but in its elasticity lay our only chance 
of safety. We flung ourselves down at full length 
on the komatik to give as broad a surface of re- 
sistance as possible, and what encouragement 
was given the dogs we did with our voices. Four 
miles did we drive over that swaying surface, 
and though at the time we were too excited to 
be nervous, we were glad to reach the "terra 
fir ma" of the standing ice edge. 

At each place we were received with the most 

cordial welcome, and scarcely allowed even to 

express our gratitude. It was always they who 

were so eager to thank us for giving them un- 

I 143 J 



LE PETIT NORD 



asked the "pleasure of our company." Their re- 
ception is always very touching. They put the 
best they have before you and will take nothing 
for their hospitality. 

In my various letters to you I have so often 
taken away the characters of our dogs that I 
must tell you of one, just to show that I have not 
altered in my devotion to our "true first friend." 
This dog's name was "Black," and he lived many 
years ago at Mistaken Cove. The tales of his 
beauty, his cleverness at tricks, and his endur- 
ance of difficulties are still told, but chiefly of 
his devotion to his master. After years of this 
companionship the beloved master died and was 
buried in the woods near his lonely little house. 
Black was inconsolable. He would eat nothing; 
he started up at every slightest noise hoping for 
the familiar whistle; he haunted the well-worn 
woodpath where they had had so many happy 
days together. Finally he discovered his master's 
grave and was found frantically tearing at the 
f 144 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

hard earth and heavy stones. Nor would he leave 
the spot. Food was brought him daily, but it 
went untouched. For one whole week he lay in 
the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on 
the grave. There the children found him on the 
eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. 
His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had 
reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall 
say that a beloved hand and voice did not wel- 
come him home? 



[ 145 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



St. Antoine Children's Home {by courtesy) 
February 28 

Of one thing I am certain, we must have a new 
Home, for this house is not fit for habitation, and 
it is not nearly large enough. Even after my re- 
cent return from living in the tiny homes of the 
people which one would fancy to be far less com- 
fortable, this is forcibly impressed upon me. We 
simply cannot go on refusing to take in children 
who need its shelter so badly. So please spread 
this broadcast among the friends in England. 
This Home has been enlarged once since it was 
built, and yet it is not nearly big enough for our 
present needs. We have no nursery, and I only 
wish you could see the tiny room which has to 
do duty for a sewing-room. It is certainly only 
called "room" by courtesy, for there is scarcely 
space to sit down, much less to use a needle with- 
out risk of injury to one's neighbour. The weekly 
mend alone, without the making of new things, 
[ 146 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

means now between two and three hundred gar- 
ments in addition to the boots, which the boys 
repair. As you can imagine, this is no light task 
and we are often driven almost distracted. I 
think the stockings are the worst, sometimes a 
hundred pairs to face at once! I fear we must 
once have been led into making some rather 
pointed remarks on this subject, for later, on 
going into the sewing-room, we found a slip of 
printed paper, cut from a magazine, and bearing 
the title of an article: "Don't Scold the Chil- 
dren when They Tear Their Stockings." 

This building rocks like a ship at sea; the roof 
continually leaks, the windows are always "com- 
ing abroad," and the panes drop out at "scat- 
tered times," while even when shut, the wind 
whistles through as if to show his utter disdain 
of our inhospitable and paltry efforts to keep 
him outside. On stormy nights, in spite of closed 
windows, the rooms resemble huge snowdrifts. 
Seven maids with seven mops sweeping for half 
I 147] 



LE PETIT NORD 



a year could never get it clear. The building 
heaves so much with the frost that the doors con- 
stantly refuse to work, because the floors have 
risen, and if they are planed, when the frost dis- 
appears, a yawning chasm confronts you. Our 
storeroom is so cold in winter that we put on 
Arctic furs to fetch in the food, and in summer 
it is flooded so that we swim from barrel to bar- 
rel as Alice floated in her pool of tears. But far 
above all these minor discomforts is the one 
overwhelming desire not to have to refuse "one 
of these little ones." 

One's heart aches when one remembers all the 
money and effort and love expended on a single 
child at home, that he may lack nothing to be 
prepared in body and spirit to meet the vicissi- 
tudes of his coming life journey. But in this land 
are hundreds of children, our own blood and kin, 
who must face their crushing problems often 
with bodies stunted from insufficient nourish- 
ment in childhood, and minds unopened and 
[ 148] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

undeveloped, not through lack of natural ability, 
but because opportunity has never come to them. 
As one looks ahead one sees clearly what a con- 
tribution these eager children could offer their 
"day" if only their cousins at home had "the 
eyes of their understanding purged to behold 
things invisible and unseen." 



[ 149 



LE PETIT NORD 



March 10 
The seals are in ! That to you doubtless does not 
seem the most engrossing item of news that could 
be communicated, but that merely proves what 
a long road you have to travel. Before the break 
of day every man capable of carrying a weapon 
is out on the ice to try and get his share of the 
spoils. 

They carry every conceivable sort of gun, 
but the six-foot muzzle-loaders are the favour- 
ites. These ancient weapons have been handed 
down from father to son for generations, and lo- 
cally go by the somewhat misleading soubriquet 
of the "little darlints." 

The people call the seals "swiles." There is 
an old story about a foreigner who once asked, 
"How do you spell 'swile'?" The answer the 
fisherman gave him was, "We don't spell [carry] 
'em. We mostly hauls 'em." 

Sea-birds have also come in the "swatches" 
[ 150] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

of open water between the pans. A gale of wind 
and sea has broken up the ice, and driven it out 
of St. Mien's Bay, which is just round the cor- 
ner from us. Thousands of "turr" are there, and 
the men are reaping many a banquet. A man's 
wealth is now gauged by the number of birds 
which are strung around the eaves of his house. 
It is a safe spot, for it keeps the birds thoroughly 
frozen, and well out of reach, at this time of year, 
of the ever-present dog. 

Some of the men were prevented from being 
on the spot for bird shooting as promptly as they 
desired by the fact that their boats, having lain 
up all winter, were not "plymmed." If you 
put a dried apple, for instance, into water it 
"plymms "; so do beans, and so do boats. When 
a boat is not "plymmed," it leaks in all its 
seams, and is therefore looked upon as unsafe 
for these sub-Arctic waters by the more con- 
servative amongst us. To stop a boat leaking 
you " chinch " the seams with oakum. Our fish- 
[ 151 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



erman sexton has just told me that "the church 
was right chinched last night." 

One by one our supplies are giving out or di- 
minishing. Each week as I send down an order to 
the store it is returned with some item crossed 
off. These articles at home would be considered 
the indispensables. Already potatoes have gone 
the way of all flesh; there is no more butter 
(though that is less loss than it sounds, for it was 
packed on the schooner directly next the kero- 
sene barrels, and a liberal quantity of that vol- 
atile liquid incorporated itself in each tub of 
"oleo"). We are warned that the remaining 
amount of flour will not hold out till the spring 
boat — our first possible chance of getting rein- 
forcements for our larder — unless we exercise 
the watchfulness of the Sphinx. The year before 
I came the first boat did not reach St. Antoine 
till the 28th of June. 

More excitement has just been communicated 
to me by Topsy: much more. A man from the 
[ 152] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Baie des Frangais has killed a huge polar bear. 
It took ten men and six dogs to haul the beast 
home after he had been finally dispatched. The 
man fired several shots at him, but did not hit a 



^Q 




vital spot. One bullet only remained to him, and 
the bear was coming at him in a very purposeful 
manner. "Now or never," thought the fisher- 
man, and fired. The creature fell dead almost 
at his feet. When they skinned him they found 
bullets in his legs and flank, but searched and 
searched in vain for the fatal one which had been 
[ 153 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



the end of him. There was no mark on the skin 
in any vital spot. At last they found it. The ball 
had penetrated exactly through the bear's ear 
into his brain. All the countryside is now dining 
off bear steak; and there is a splendid skin to be 
purchased if you are so minded. I have eaten a 
bit of the steak, though I confess I did not sit 
down to the feast with any pleasurable anticipa- 
tion, as the men said that they found the remains 
of a recently devoured seal in Bruin's "turn." I 
had an agreeable surprise. The meat was fibrous 
and a little tough, but it was quite good — a 
vast improvement on the sea-birds which are so 
highly valued in the local commissariat. 

The Prophet has a vivid idea of the processes 
going on in the heads of animals. He says that 
up to fifteen years ago there were bears innu- 
merable "in the country." "And one day, miss," 
he explained, "the whole crew of them gets 
their anchors and leaves in a body." To hear 
him one would imagine that at a concerted signal 
\ 154 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

the bears came out of their burrows and shook 
the dust of the land from their feet. 
; The Eskimos toll the seals. They lie on the ice 
and wave their legs in the air, and the seals, curi- 
ous animals, approach to discover the nature of 
the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched. 
One Eskimo of a histrionic temperament decided 
to "go one better." He went out to the ice edge, 
climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and 
waved his legs, as per stage directions. We are 
not informed whether the device would have 
proved a successful decoy to the seals, for before 
any had been lured within range, another In- 
nuit, having seen the sealskin legs gesticulating 
on the ice edge, naturally mistook them for the 
real thing, fired with regrettable accuracy, and 
went out to find a dead cousin. 

The story is the only deterrent I have from 

dressing in my white Russian hareskin coat, and 

sitting in the graveyard some dusky evening. 

The people claim that the place is haunted. I 

[ 155 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



have never met a "Yoho" and never expect to, 
but I would dearly love to see how others act 
>when they think they have. Only the suspicion 
that they would "plump for safety," and fire the 
inevitable muzzle-loader at my white garment, 
keeps me from making the experiment in corpore 
vile. 

The birds and the seals and the bears and 
white foxes coming south on the moving ice are 
signs of spring. There is a stir in the air as if the 
people as well sensed that the back of the long 
winter was broken. How it has flown! You can- 
not fancy my sensations of lonesomeness when 
I think that I shall never spend another in this 
country. You cannot describe or analyze the lure 
of the land and its people, but it is there, and 
grips you. I have grown to love it, and you will 
welcome home an uncomplimentary homesick 
comrade when September comes. 



156 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



April 1 
Last minute of Sunday, so here 's to you. To- 
morrow I shall be cheerfully immersed up to the 
eyes in work. 

Oh! this Home. How little it deserves the 
name ! Our English storms are nothing but ba- 
bies compared with the appalling blasts which 
sweep down upon us from the north. In summer 
the furious seas dash against the cliffs as if to 
protect them from the desecration of human en- 
croachment. The fine snow filters in between the 
roof and ceiling of this building, and in a "mild," 
such as we are now experiencing, it melts, and 
endless little rivulets trickle down in nearly every 
room. The water comes in on my bed, on the 
kitchen range, and on the dining-room table. It 
falls on the sewing-machine in one room, on the 
piano and bookcase in another. Its catholicity 
of taste is plain disheartening ! 

You ask whether these kiddies have the stuff 
\ 157 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



in them to repay what you are pleased to term 
"such an outlay of effort." My emphatic "y es " 
should have been so insistent as to have reached 
you by telepathy when the doubt first presented 
itself. The Home has been established now long 
enough to have some of its "graduates" go out 
into life; and the splendid manhood and woman- 
hood of these young people are at once a suffi- 
cient reward to us and a silencing response to 
you. Many of them have been sent to the States 
and Canada for further education, and are now 
not only writing a successful story for themselves, 
but helping their less fortunate neighbours, in a 
way we from outside never can, to turn over 
many a new leaf in their books. 

Yesterday I attended the theatre, only it was 
the operating theatre. The patient on this occa- 
sion was a doll, the surgeon a lad of seven, him- 
self a victim of infantile paralysis, and the head 
nurse assisting was aged nine, and wears a 
brace on each leg. The stage was the children's 
[ 158] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

ward of the hospital. Here are several pathetic 
little people, orthopedic cases, brought in for 
treatment during the winter, and who must stay 
till the spring boat arrives, as their homes are 
now cut off by interminable miles of snow wastes 
and icy sea. Nothing escapes their notice. They 
tear up their Christmas picture books, and when 
charged with the enormity of their offence, ex- 
plain that they "must have adhesive tape for 
their operative work." Dick, the surgeon, was 
overheard the other day telling Margaret, the 
head nurse, as together they amputated the legs 
of her doll, "This is the way Sir Robert Jones 
does it." 

Next to operating, the children love music; 
and they love it with a repertoire varied to meet 
every mood, from "Keep the Home Fires Burn- 
ing " to " In the Courts of Belshazzar and a Hun- 
dred of his Lords." One three-year-old scrap 
comes from a Salvation Army household, and 
listens to all such melodies with marked disap- 
[ 159 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



proval. But when the others finish, she "pipes 
up," shutting her eyes, clapping her hands and 
swaying back and forth — 

"Baby 's left the cradle for the Golden Shore: 
Now he floats, now he floats, 
Happy as before." 

Three of the kiddies are Roman Catholics and 
have taught their companions to say their pray- 
ers properly of an evening. They all cross them- 
selves devoutly at the close; but this instruction 
has fallen on fallow ground in the wee three-year- 
old. She sits with eyes tightly screwed together 
lest she be forced even to witness such heresy 
and schism. 

Yesterday I was walking with Gabriel when 
we came upon a tiny bird essaying his first spring 
song on a tree-top nearby. Gabriel looked at 
the newcomer silently for several minutes, and 
finally, turning his luminous brown eyes up to 
my face, asked, "Do he sing hymns, Teacher?" 

[ 160] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



April 19 
The village sale was held last week. This has 
become an annual occurrence, and the proceeds 
are devoted to varying good objects. This time 
the hospital was the beneficiary. For months the 
countryside, men and women, have been making 
articles, and I can assure you it is a relief to have 
it over and such a success to boot, and life's quiet 
tone restored. We made large numbers of pur- 
chases, and consumed unbelievable quantities of 
more than solid nourishment. The people have 
shown the greatest ingenuity and diligence, and 
the display was a credit to their talent. I was 
particularly struck with the really clever carving 
representing local scenes which the fishermen 
had done with no other tools than their jack- 
knives. The auction was the keynote of the eve- 
ning, due largely to the signal ability of the auc- 
tioneer. His methods are effective, but strictly his 
own. Cakes, made generally in graded layers and 
[ 161 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



liberally coated with different coloured sugar, 
were the favourites. As he held up the last tee- 
tering mountain he "bawled": "What am I 
bid for this wonderful cake? 'T is a bargain at 
any price. Why, she 's so heavy I can't hold her 
with one hand." It fetched seven dollars! 

The yearly meet for sports was held in the aft- 
ernoon before the sale, and was voted by all to 
be a great success. It is a far cry from the days 
when games were introduced here by the Mis- 
sion. Then the people's lives were so drab, and 
they had little idea of the sporting qualities 
which every Englishman values so highly. In 
those early days if in a game of football one side 
kicked a goal, they had to wait till the other had 
done the same before the game could proceed, 
or the play would have been turned into a battle. 
Now everything in trousers in the place can be 
seen of an evening out on the harbour ice kick- 
ing a ball about. The harbour is our very roomy 
athletic field. 

[ 162 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Twenty-two teams had entered for the dog 
race, and the start, when the whole number were 
ranged up in the line, was pandemonium un- 
loosed. The dogs were barking out threatenings 
and slaughter to the teams next them, their mas- 
ters were shouting unheeded words of command, 
the crowd were cheering their favourites, and 
altogether you would never have guessed from 
the racket and confusion that you were north of 
the Roaring Forties. 

The last event on the sports programme was 
a scramble for coloured candies by all the chil- 
dren of the village. Our flock from the Home par- 
ticipated. The proceeding was as unhygienic as 
it was alluring, and our surprise was great when 
a universally healthy household greeted the 
morrow morn. 

When I heard the amount the poor folk had 

raised for charity out of their meagre pittance, I 

felt reproached. It is a consistent fact here that 

the people give and do more than their means 

[ 163] 



LE PETIT NORD 



justify, and it must involve a hard pinch for 
them in some other quarter. 

Coming from the sale at ten at night I looked 
for our "Yoho" in passing the churchyard, but 
was unrewarded, though some of the harbour 
people assured me in the morning that they had 
seen it plainly. Can there be anything in the cur- 
rent belief that the men of the sea are more 
psychic than we case-hardened products of civ- 
ilization, or is it merely superstition? There is 
a story here of a man called Gaulton, which is 
vouched for by all the older men who can recall 
the incident. It seems that in Savage Cove this 
old George Gaulton lived till he was ninety. He 
died on December 4, 1883. On the 16th he ap- 
peared in the flesh to a former acquaintance at 
Port au Choix, fifty miles from the spot at which 
he had died. This man Shenicks gives the fol- 
lowing account of the curious visitation : 

"I was in the woods cutting timber for a day 
and a half. During the whole of that time I was 
f 164 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

sure I heard footsteps near me in the snow, al- 
though I could see nothing. On the evening of 
the second day, in consequence of heavy rain, 
I returned home early. I knew my cattle had 
plenty of food, but something forced me to go 
to the hay-pook. While there, in a few moments 
I stood face to face with old George Gaul ton. I 
was not frightened. We stood in the rain and 
talked for some time. In the course of the conver- 
sation the old man gave me a message for his 
eldest son, and begged me to deliver it to him 
myself before the end of March. Immediately 
afterwards he disappeared, and then I was ter- 
ribly afraid.*' 

A few weeks later Shenicks went all the way 
to Savage Cove and delivered the message given 
to him in so strange a fashion. 

A word of apology and I close. In an early 
letter to you I recall judging harshly a concoc- 
tion called "brewis." Experience here has taught 
me that our own delicacies meet with a similar 
[ 105 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



fate at the hands of my present fellow country- 
men. I offered Carmen on her arrival a cup of 
cocoa for Sunday supper. After one sniff, bid- 
dable and polite child though she was, I saw her 
surreptitiously pour the "hemlock cup" out of 
the open window behind her. 



[ 166 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



May 23 
Many miles over the hills from St. Antoine lies 
one of the wildest and most beautiful harbours 
on this coast. Nestling within magnificently high 
rocks, the picturesque colouring of which is re- 
flected in the quiet water beneath, lies the little 
village of Cremailliere. It is only a small settle- 
ment of tiny cottages beside the edge of the sea, 
but it has the unenviable reputation of being 
the worst village on the coast. In winter only 
three families live there, but in the summer- 
time a number of men come for the fishing, and 
they with their wives and children exist in al- 
most indescribable hovels. Some of these huts 
are just rough board affairs, about six feet by 
ten, and resemble cow sheds more than houses. 
If there is a window at all, it is merely a small 
square of glass (not made to open) high up on 
one side of the wall. In some there is not even 
the pretence of a window, but in cases of severe 
[ 167 I 



LE PETIT NORD 



sickness a hole is knocked through for venti- 
lation on hearing of the near approach of the 
Mission doctor. The walls have only one thick- 
ness of board with no lining and the roofs are 
thatched with sods. There is no flooring what- 
ever. Not one person in Cremailliere can either 
read or write. 

Yesterday there was a funeral held in one of 
the little villages, and the mingling of pathos 
and humour made one realize more vividly than 
ever how " all the world 's akin." A young mother 
had died who could have been saved if her folk 
had realized the danger in time and sent for the 
doctor. She was lying in a rude board coffin in 
the bare kitchen. As space was at a premium the 
casket had been placed on the top of the long 
box which serves as a residence for the family 
rooster and chickens. They kept popping their 
heads, with their round, quick eyes out through 
the slats, and emitting startled crows and clucks 
at the visitors. The young woman was dressed 
[ 168 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



in all her outdoor clothing; a cherished lace cur- 
tain sought to hide the rough, unplaned boards 
of the coffin — for it had been hewn from the 
forest the day before. The depth of her husband's 
grief was evidenced by the fact that he had spent 
his last and only two dollars in the purchase, at 
the Nameless Cove general store, of the highly 
flowered hat which surmounted his wife's young 
careworn but peaceful face as she lay at rest. 

I saw for the first time an old custom pre- 
served on the coast. Before the coffin was closed 
all the family passed by the head of the deceased 
and kissed the face of their loved one for the last 
time, while all the visitors followed and laid their 
hands reverently on the forehead. Only when 
the master of ceremonies, who is always specially 
appointed, had cried out in a sonorous voice, 
"Any more?" and met with no response, was 
the ceremony of closing the lid permitted. 

Surely the children are the one and only hope 
of this country. Through them we may trust to 
[ 169] 



LE PETIT NORD 



raise the moral standard of the generations to 
come, but it is going to be a very slow process 
to make any headway against the ignorance and 
absence of desire for better things which prevails 
so largely here. 

I must tell you of the latest addition to our 
family. On the first boat in the spring there ar- 
rived a family, brought by neighbours, to say 
what the Mission could do for them. I think I 
have never seen a more forlorn sight than this 
group presented when they stepped from the 
steamer. There was the father (the mother is 
dead), an elderly half-witted cripple capable 
neither of caring for himself nor for his children, 
four boys of varying sizes, and a girl of fourteen 
in the last stages of tuberculosis. The family 
were nearly frozen, half -starved, and completely 
dazed at the hopelessness of their situation. The 
girl was admitted to the hospital, where she has 
since died, and the youngest boy, Israel, we took 
into the Home. Alas, we had only room for the 
[ 170 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

one. Israel was at first much overawed by the 
standard of cleanliness required in this institu- 
tion, and protested vigorously when we tried to 
put him into the bathtub. He explained to us 
that he never washed more than his face and 
hands at home, not even his neck and ears, the 
limitation of territory being strictly defined and 
scrupulously observed. 



[ HI] 



LE PETIT NORD 



June 20 
Unlike last year this summer promises to be 
hot, at least for this country. I have felt one 
great lack this year. You have to pass the long 
months of what would be lovely spring in Eng- 
land without a sign of a living blade of flower, 
though a few little songbirds did their best 
bravely to make it up to us. Already we are being 
driven almost crazy with the mosquitoes and 
black flies, songsters.of no mean calibre, especially 
at night. In desperation our little ones yesterday 
succeeded in killing an unusually large specimen, 
and after burying it with great solemnity were 
heard singing around the grave in no uncheerful 
tones, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." 

I hate to think that these next few weeks will 
be the last I shall spend in this country and with 
these children. The North seems to weave over 
one a kind of spell and fascination all its own. I 
look back sometimes and smile that I should 
[ 172 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

ever have felt the year long or dreary; it has 
passed so quickly that I can scarcely believe it 
already time to be thinking of you and Eng- 
land again. I may emulate the example of Mrs. 
Lot, but with the certainty that a similar fate 
to hers does not await me. 

I have just unpacked a barrel of clothing sent 
from home to the Orphanage, and find to my 
disgust that it is almost entirely composed of 
muslin blouses and old ladies' bonnets! What 
am I to do with them? The blouses I can use as 
mosquito veiling, but these bonnets are not the 
kind our babies wear. I shall present one to 
Topsy, who will look adorable in it. 

You hint it is hard to get up interest in Lab- 
rador because we are neither heathen nor black. 
I can imagine your sewing circle of dear old 
ladies (perhaps they sent the bonnets) discus- 
sing the relative merits of working to send aero- 
planes to the Arabs, bicycles to the Bedouins, 
comforters to the Chinese, jumpers to the Jap- 
[ H3] 



LE PETIT NORD 



anese, handkerchiefs to the Hottentots, hair 
nets to the Hindoos, mouth organs to the Mo- 
hammedans, pinafores to the Parsees, pyjamas 
to the Papuans, prayer-books to the Pigmies, 
sandwiches to the South Sea Islanders, or zith- 
ers to the Zulus. Just wait till I can talk to 
your dear old ladies! 

A few days ago we had a very narrow escape 
from fire; indeed, it seemed for some time as if 
the whole of the Mission would be wiped out. 
It was a half-holiday and our boys had gone 
fishing to the Devil's Pond, a favourite spot of 
theirs, about a mile away. Unfortunately Noah 
was seized with the idea of lighting a fire by 
which to cook the trout, the matches having 
been stolen from my room. It had been dry for 
several days, there was quite a wind, and the 
fire, catching the furze, quickly got beyond the 
one required for culinary purposes. The boys 
first tried to smother it with their coats, but 
finding that of no avail ran home to give the 
[ 174] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

alarm. By the time the men could get to the spot 
the fire had spread so rapidly that attention had 
to be turned towards trying to save the houses. 
The doctor's house was the one most directly 
threatened at first, and we proceeded to strip it 
of all furniture, carrying everything to the fore- 
shore to be ready to be taken off if necessary. 
The doctor was away on a medical call, and you 
can imagine my feelings when I expected every 
moment to see the Northern Light come round 
the point, the doctor's house in flames and his 
household gods scattered to the winds! Then 
we dismantled this place — the children having 
been sent at the outset to a place of safety — 
and removed the patients from the hospital. 
Every man in the place was hard at work, and 
there were few of us who dared to hope that we 
should have a roof over our heads that night. 
Happily the wind suddenly dropped, the fire 
died down, and late that night we were able to 
return and endeavour to sort out babies and 
[175] 



LE PETIT NORD 



furniture. The goddess of disorder reigned su- 
preme, and it was only after many weary hours 
that we were able to find beds for the babies and 
babies for the beds. And it was our boys who 
started the fire! I am covered with confusion 
every second when I stop to think of it, and won- 
der if this is not the psychological moment to 
make my exit from this Mission. 



[ 176 ] 









ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

July 11 

By invitation of the doctor I am off for a trip on 
the Northern Light next week. He offers me thus 
the chance to see other portions of the Shore 
before he drops me at the Iron Bound Islands, 
where I can connect with the southern-going 
coastal steamer. The Prophet has encouraged 
me with the observation that "nearly all the 
female ladies what comes aboard her do be won- 
derful sick," but I am not to be deterred. So: 

"Now, Brothers, for the icebergs of frozen Labrador, 
Floating spectral in the moonshine along the low, black 

shore. 
Where in the mist the rock is hiding, and the sharp reef 

lurks below; 
And the white squall smites in summer, and the autumn 

tempests blow.'* 

This is a mere scrap of a greeting, for the day 
of departure is so near that I feel I want to 
spend every minute with the kiddies. I count 
on your forbearance, and your knowledge that 
though my pen is quiet, my heart still holds you 
without rival. 

[ 177] 



LE PETIT NORD 



On board the Northern Light 
July 16 

Is to-day as lovely in your part of the world as it 
is in mine, and do you greet it with a background 
of as exciting a night as the one that has just 
passed over us? I wonder. I came across some 
old forms of bills of lading sent out to this coun- 
try from England. They always closed with this 
most appropriate expression, "And so God send 
the good ship to her desired port in safety." It 
has fallen into disuse long ago, but about break 
of early day the idea took a very compelling 
shape in my mind. We put out from Bonne Es- 
perance just as night was falling, and there was 
no moon to aid us. The doctor had decided on 
the outside run, and brief as is my acquaintance 
with the "lonely Labrador," I knew what that 
meant. I therefore betook myself betimes to bed 
as the best spot for an unseasoned mariner. 
Twelve o'clock found us barely holding our own 
[ 178] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

against a furious head wind and sea — "An aw- 
ful night for a sinner," as our cheery Prophet 
remarked as he lurched past my cabin door. Ice- 
bergs were dotted about. Great combers were 
pouring over our bow and the floods came sweep- 
ing down the decks sounding like the roar of a 
thousand cataracts. 

The only way one could keep from being 
hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a 
leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for 
the little ship was bouncing back and forth so 
fast and so far that it was impossible to compare 
it with the motion of any other craft. Day be- 
gan to dawn about 3 a.m. By the dim light I 
could make out mighty mountains of green 
foaming water. At each roll of the steamer we 
seemed to be at the bottom of a huge emerald 
pit. Suddenly some one yelled, "There she 
goes!" and that second the boat was dragged 
down, down, down. An immense wave had 
caught us, rolled us so far over that our dory in 
f 179 1 



LE PETIT NORD 






davits had filled with water to the brim. As the 
ship righted herself, the weight of the dory 
snapped off the davit at the deck, and the boat, 
still attached by her painter, was dragged un- 
derneath our hull, and threatened to pull us 
down with it. In two seconds the men had cut 
her away, but not before she had nearly banged 
herself to matchwood against our side. 

Now we are lying under the lea of St. Augus- 
tine Island waiting for the wind to abate. The 
chief engineer has just offered to row me ashore 
to hunt for young puffins. More later. 

There were hundreds of them in every fam- 
ily, and so many families that it resembled 

nothing so much as a puffin ghetto. I judged 

from the turmoil that they were screeching for 

"a place in the sun." The noise they made did 

[ 180 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

not in the least accord with their respectable 
Quaker appearance. Shall I bring you one as a 
pet? Its austere presence would help you to 
remember your "latter end." 

When I wrote you that there was ice about, I 
did not refer to the field ice through which we 
travelled on my way north. This is the real 
thing this time — icebergs, and lots of them. 
They call the little ones "growlers," and big and 
little alike are classed as "pieces of ice"! They 
are not my idea of a "piece" of anything. I 
know now what the Ancient Mariner meant 
when he said: 

"And ice mast high came floating by 
As green as emerald." 

It exactly describes them, only it does n't wholly 
describe them, for no one could. They loom up 
in every shape and size and variation of form, 
pinnacles and towers and battlements, stately 
palaces of glittering crystal, triumphal arch- 
ways more gorgeous than ever welcomed a con- 
f 181 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



queror home. Sometimes they are shining white, 
too dazzling to look at; and sometimes they are 
streaked with great vivid bands of green and 
azure which are so unearthly and brilliant that 
I feel certain some fairy has dipped his brush in 
the solar spectrum and dabbed the colours on 
this gigantic palette. 

A sea without these jewels of the Arctic will 
forever look barren and unfinished to me after 
this. Even the sailors, who know too well what 
a menace they are to their craft, yield to their 
beauty a mute and grudging homage. To sit in 
the sun or the moonlight, and watch a heavy 
sea hurling mountains of water and foam over 
one of these ocean monarchs is a never-to-be- 
forgotten experience. So too it is to listen to the 
thunder of one of them "foundering"; for their 
equilibrium is very unstable, and the action of 
the sea, as they travel southwards to their death 
in the Gulf Stream, cuts them away at the sur- 
face of the water. Blocks weighing unbelievable 
f 189 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

tons crash off them, or they will suddenly, with- 
out a second's warning, break into a million 
pieces. I can never conquer a creepiness of the 
spine as I listen to one of these tragedies. It is a 
startling, new sensation such as we never expect 
to meet again after childhood has shut its doors 
on us. In the quiet that follows the gigantic dis- 
integration one half expects to see a new heaven 
and a new earth emerge out of the chaos of ice 
quivering in the water. 

You often warned me in the course of the past 
year how dull life would be. You knew how I 
loved a city. I still do. But the last word on 
earth one could apply to the life here is "dull." 
Nature takes care of that. I defy you to walk 
along any street in London and see six porpoises 
and a whale! That is what I saw this morning. 
Oh! of course you may counter by telling me 
that neither can I see an automobile or a fire en- 
gine, but I have you, because I can answer that 
I have seen them already. How are you going to 
I 183 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



get out of that corner, except by saying that you 
do not want to see the old porpoises and whales 
and bergs? — and I know your "Scotch" con- 
science forbids such distortion of facts. 

I have come to believe in the personality of 
porpoises. They swam beside the ship, playing 
about in the water all the while, rolling over and 
diving, and chasing each other just as if they 
knew they had a "gallery." We did not reward 
them very well either, for the Prophet shot one, 
and we ate bits of him for lunch — the porpoise, 
I mean, not the Prophet. I thought he would 
make a good companion-piece for the polar bear, 
and he was quite edible. He only needed a rasher 
of bacon to make you believe he was calf's liver. 

So you see that between puffins and porpoises 
and whales, and "growlers" and lost dories, I 
crowded enough into one day to give me dreams 
that Alice in Wonderland might covet. 

In your secret heart don't you wish that you 
too were 

[ 184] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



"Where the squat-legged Eskimo 
Waddles in the ice and snow, 
And the playful polar bear 
Nips the hunter unaware; 
Where the air is kind o' pure, 
And the snow crop 's pretty sure" ? 



[ 185 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



July 22 
It has been days since I wrote you, and they 
have slipped by so stealthily I must have missed 
half they held. 

Since coming aboard I have taken to rising 
promptly. It is a necessary measure if I am to be 
able to rise at all. One morning I stuck my head 
out just in time to see my favourite sweater, 
which I had counted on for service on the home- 
ward voyage, disappearing over the rail — legit- 
imately, so far as concerned the wearer. Last 
week, by the merest fluke, I rescued my best 
boots from a similar fate. The doctor explained 
lamely on each occasion that they got mixed 
with the clothing sent for distribution to the 
poor. This may be a literal statement of fact, 
but I doubt the manner of the mixing. 

We celebrated to-day by running aground on 
the flats. You can "squeak" over them if you 
happen to strike the channel. The difficulty is, 
f 186 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

however, that the sandy bottom shifts. To-day 
it is, and to-morrow it is not. I was eating one of 
those large, hearty breakfasts which the com- 
bination of a dead flat calm and a sunshiny brisk 
air make such a desideratum. I was, moreover, 
perched on the top of the wheel house, and re- 
flecting on the poor taste of the author of the 
Book of Revelation when he said that in heaven 
"there shall be no more sea." At this moment 
I came to with a lurch. "She's stuck!" yelled, 
or as he himself would put it, "bawled," the 
Prophet. For once he was undeniably right. 
Fortunately the tide was on the flood, and we 
floated off a short while after. 

In the afternoon we visited an Eskimo Mora- 
vian station. They — the Eskimos, not the Mo- 
ravians — are a jolly little people, and pictur- 
esque as possible. Not that any aspersions on 
the Moravians are intended, for I have the 
greatest respect for them. My shining leather 
coat made a great hit. They fondled it and 
\ 187 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



stroked it, and coo-ed at it as if it were a new 
baby. All the women past their very first youth 
seemed toothless. I wondered if it could be a 
characteristic of the tribe — sort of Manx Es- 
kimo. I asked the Prophet what was the cause 
of the universal shortage, and was told that the 
Eskimo women all chew the sealskin to soften it 
for making into boots. You can take this state- 
ment for what it may be worth. 

Speaking of which I have just finished reading 
a ludicrously furious attack on the Mission in a 
St. John's paper, for its alleged misrepresenta- 
tions. It seems that last year the former superin- 
tendent took down a boy from the Children's 
Home to give him a chance at further education. 
He had a wooden leg, his own having been re- 
moved by an operation for tuberculosis. On his 
arrival in Montreal the omnivorous reporter saw 
in him excellent copy, and forthwith printed the 
following purely fictitious account of the cause 
of his disability. Little Kommak, so the story 
[ 188 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



ran (the boy is of pure Irish extraction, and is 
named Michael Flynn), was one day sitting with 
his mother in his igloo when he saw a large polar 
bear approaching. Having no weapon, and not 
desiring the presence of the bear in any capac- 
ity at their midday meal, he stuck his leg out 
through the small aperture of the igloo. The bear 




bit it off on the principle of half a loaf being bet- 
ter than no bread. The whole thing was a fabric 
of lies from beginning to end. The St. John's 
papers discovered the article, pounced upon it, 
and printed the article "queje viens definir."Ol 
I 189 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



course, if the local editor lacked humour enough 
to credit the doctor with such a fairy tale, one 
could pity the poor soul, but his diatribe has 
rather the earmarks of jealousy. 

A lovely sunset is lighting up the sea and sky 
and hills, and turning the plain little settlement, 
in the harbour of which we are anchored, into 
the Never, Never Land. The scene is so be- 
witching that I find my soul purged by it of the 
bad taste of the attack. I '11 leave you to digest 
the mixed metaphor undisturbed while I go be- 
low and help with the patients who have begun 
pouring aboard. 

Same evening 
An old chap has just climbed over the rail, who 
looks like an early patriarch, but his dignity is 
impaired by the moth-eaten high silk hat which 
surmounts his white hair. The people regard 
him with apparent deference, due either to the 
hat or his inherent character. Looking at his 
[ 190 ] 






ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

fine old face, one is inclined to believe it is the 
latter. 

The expressions these people use are so nauti- 
cal and so apt ! Every patient who comes aboard 
expressed the wish to be "sounded" in some 
portion of his or her anatomy for the suspected 
ailment which has brought him. One burly fish- 
erman solemnly took off his huge oily sea-boot, 
placed a grimy forefinger on his heel, and re- 
marked sententiously that the doctor "must 
sound him right there." The prescription was 
soap and water — a diagnosis in which I en- 
tirely concurred. The next case was a young girl 
with a "kink in her glutch." It has the sound of 
all too familiar motor trouble, but was dismissed 
as psychopathic. I wish that a similarly simple 
diagnosis accounted for the mysterious ailments 
of automobiles. My meditations on modern sci- 
ence were interrupted by an insistent voice pro- 
claiming that "my head is like to burst abroad." 

If I were a woman on this coast my temper 
[ 191 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



would "burst abroad" to see the men — some 
of them — spitting all over the floors of the cot- 
tages: disgusting and particularly dangerous in 
a country where the arch-enemy, tuberculosis, is 
ever on the watch for victims. But the new era is 
slowly dawning. Now, instead of hooking "Wel- 
come Home" into the fireside mat, you find 
"Dont Spit" worked in letters of flame. It is 
the harbinger of the feminist movement in the 
land. 

Speaking of the feminist movement makes me 
think of a woman at Aquaforte Harbour. She 
deserves a book written about her. In the first 
place, Elmira had the courage of her convic- 
tions, and did not marry. Her convictions were 
that marriage was desirable if you get the right 
man who can support you properly, and not 
otherwise. This is generations in advance of the 
local attitude to the holy estate. She has lived a 
life of single' blessedness to the coast. In every 
trouble along her section of the shore it is "rou- 
f 192 1 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR' 

tine" to send for "Aunt" 'Mira. She has more 
sense and unselfishness and native wit than you 
would meet in ten products of civilization. For a 
year she acted as nurse to the little boy of one of 
the staff, and never was child better cared for. 
They once told 'Mira she really must make baby 
take his bottle. (He had the habit of profound 
slumber at that time.) "Oh! I does, ma'm," 
'Mira replied. "If he d walls off, I gives him a 
scattered jolt." The family took her to England 
with them, and her remarks on the trains showed 
where her ancestry lay. When they backed 
she exclaimed, "My happy day! We're goin' 
astern!" She requested to be allowed to "open 
the port"; and at a certain junction where there 
was a long delay she asked to go "ashore for a 
spell." 

'That "hell is paved with good intentions" 
is no longer a glib phrase to me; it is a convic- 
tion born of seeing some of the suffering of this 
country. The doctor has just been ashore to see 
\ 193 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



a woman with a five-days old baby. No attempt 
whatever had been made to get her or her bed 
clean or comfortable. She had developed a vio- 
lent fever, and the local midwives, with their 
congenital terror of the use of water — internal 
or external — had larded the miserable creature 
over from head to foot with butter, and finished 
off with a liberal coating of oakum. The doctor 
said, by the time he had himself scraped and 
bathed her, put her in a fresh cool bed with a 
jug of spring water beside her to drink, she 
looked as if she thought the gates of Paradise 
had opened. 

Mails reached us at the Moravian station, 
and your most welcome letters loomed large on 
the postal horizon. You ask if I have not found 
the year long. I will answer by telling you the 
accepted derivation of the name "Labrador." 
It comes from the Portuguese, and means "the 
labourer," because those early voyagers in- 
tended to send slaves back to His Majesty. 
[ 194 1 






ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

Well-filled time, so the psychologists tell us, is 
short in passing, and "down North," before 
you are half into the day's tasks, you look up to 
find that "the embers of the day are red." You 
must have guessed, too, that I should not have 
evinced such contentment during these months 
if my fellow workers had not been congenial. I 
shall always remember their devotion, and readi- 
ness to serve both one another and the people; 
and I know that the years to come will only 
deepen my appreciation of what their friendship 
has meant to me. 

How glad I was when the winter came, and I 
was no longer classed as a newcomer! I had 
heard so much about dog driving that I remem- 
ber thinking the resultant sensations must be 
akin to those Elijah experienced in his chariot. 
But now I have driven with dogs in summer, 
and that is more than most of the older stagers 
can boast. In a prosperous little village in the 
Straits lives the rural dean. He is a devoted and 
f 195 1 



LE PETIT NORD 



practical example of what a shepherd and bishop 
of souls can be. There is not a good work for 
the benefit of his flock — and he is not bound 
by the conventional and unchristian denomina- 
tional prejudices — which does not find in him a 
leader. His interests range from cooperation to a 
skin-boot industry. But the problem of getting 
about when you have no Aladdin's carpet is 
acute. He goes by dog sled and shanks' pony in 
winter, and used to go by boat and shanks' pony 
in summer. Then one day he had the inspiration 
of building a two-wheeled shay, and harnessing 
in his lusty and idle dog team. Now he drives 
about at a rate that "Jehu the son of Nimshi 
would approve," and is independent of winds 
and weather. 

Sunday to-morrow. We are running south for 
the Ragged Islands. If I were not on the hospi- 
tal ship, and therefore an involuntary example 
to the people, I would fall into my bunk at 
night with my clothes on, I am so weary. 
[ 196 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 



Ragged Islands 

Sunday night 

Just aboard again after Prayers at the little 
church. It is a quaint and crude little edifice, 
and the people were so kindly and the service 
so hearty that one feels "wonderfu* lifted up." 
To be sure, during the sermon I was suddenly 
brought up "all standing" by the amazing 
statement that the "Harch Hangels go Hup, 
Hup, Hup." One felt in one's bones that this 
was a misapprehension. The very earnest clergy- 
man may have noticed my obvious disagree- 
ment, for at the close he announced, "We will 
now sing the 398th hymn " — 

"Day of Wrath, oh! Day of Mourning, 
See fulfilled the Prophet's warning, 
Heaven and earth in ashes burning." 

This goes off into the blue on the chance of its 
reaching you before I come myself and share a 
secret with you; for to-morrow we are due at 
[ 197 ] 



LE PETIT NORD 



the Iron Bound Islands, and there I leave the 
Northern Light, and end the chapter of my life 
as a member of the Mission staff. The appropri- 
ateness of the closing hymn in the little church 
last night is borne more than ever forcibly in 
upon me with the chill light of early morning, 
for I verily feel as though my world were tot- 
tering about my ears. 

I am still optimist enough to know that life 
will hold many experiences which will enrich it, 
but in my secret heart I cherish the conviction 
that this year will always stand out as a key- 
note, and a touchstone by which to judge those 
which succeed it. My greatest solace in the ache 
which I feel in taking so long a farewell of a peo- 
ple and country that I love is that I shall always 
possess them in memory — a treasure which no 
one can take from me. As I look back over the 
quickly speeding year I find that I have forgot- 
ten those trivial incidents of discomfort which 
pricked my hurrying feet. All I can recall is the 
[ 198 ] 



ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR 

rugged beauty of the land, the brave and sim- 
ple people with their hardy manhood and more 
than generous hospitality, and most of all my 
little bairns who hold in their tiny hands the 
future of Le Petit Nord. 




CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 









4 5 * 










! 



■^o^ 









** A* I °- 



i_ ' "Sa -JO 









x 00 ^ 






x0^ 



W 



% 




\ v Sd 






& * 




























